Friendly letters

Letters to relations and intimate friends should be written in an easy, conversational style. They are really of the nature of friendly chat; and, being as a rule unpremeditated and spontaneous compositions, they are informal and free-and easy as compared with essays, just in a friendly talk, so in friendly letters, we can touch on many subjects and in any order we like; we can use colloquial expressions which in would in formal essay be quite of place. But this dose not mean that we can be careless and slovenly in dashing off our letters, for it insulting to ask a friend to decipher a badly written, ill composed and confused scrawl; so we must take some care and preserve some order in expressing our thoughts. Above all, it must be remembered that, however free-and easy be our style, we are just as much bound by rules of spelling, punctuation, grammar and idiom in writing a letter as we are in writing the most formal essay. Such ungrammatical expressions as`` an advice’’ ``those sort of things’’ and he met my brother and I,’’ are no more permissible in a friendly letter than in a literary article. Mistakes in spelling, punctuation and grammar at once stamp a letter- writing as undedicated.

Form of address- in friendly letters to relations and intimate friends, the proper form of address is the same of the person to whom you are writing, prefixed by such qualifying terms as dear, my dear, dearest, etc.

But if you are writing to an ordinary friend who is much older than you are, or of superior rank, it is respectful to use a prefix like Mr, Mrs., Shri etc.eg. Dear Mr R.amarao

The forms of subscription are varied. The following can be used in letters to relatives and near friends- yours affectionately, your affectionate or you ca use some such form as this.-

With love and best wishes,

From your affectionate friend,

Karun kapur

Including letters to friends or acquaintances whom you address as ``Shri or Mr….’’you should use the word sincerely or very sincerely, in the subscription; and this may be preceded by with kind regards. Thus-

With kind regards,

Yours sincerely,

Mahesbutt