Tag: Smiles

Prime signoffs

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Formal letters may be an endangered species, say apart from legal actions, but you may still find a need for a snappy closing line for other written transactions.

Here are a few of note.

  1. Cheerio, luff, and all that. Alternatively,” Luv ya,” or, “Love & hugs.”
  2. Cheers or beers.
  3. Whoops!
  4. Too’s yours. (Knockoff on “toujours.”)
  5. Tally-ho. Also, “Tally-ho-ho-hon.”
  6. Warm fuzzies.
  7. Taa-taa. Also, “Too-da-loo” or “Tou-da-lahjh.”
  8. Keep sizzlin’. Or, “Keep smilin’.”
  9. Hippity-hop.
  10. Tootles.

“Laters!” got misappropriated.

 

Forget ‘sincerely’

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Letter writing may be a dead art, thanks to email, texting, and online job application forms, among the changing means of communication, but one of the challenges of on-paper correspondence had been in selecting an appropriate closing line, which went right above your signature. (Few youths today, I’m told, actually have signatures. Ahem.)

As one bit of advice noted, “sincerely” is for lawyers, better to be too warm than too distant.

Here are some alternatives, should the occasion arise.

  1. Thank you for your time. Alternatively, “Thanks for your time” or “Thanks again.”
  2. Good wishes, always. Or even, “Always,” or, “All the best, always.”
  3. Toujours.
  4. Enthusiastically.
  5. Only the best or betters.
  6. Stay well.
  7. Cheers!
  8. Thanx and g’day.
  9. Let’s go!
  10. Onward!

Gee, now I’m wondering about “Truly.” Or even, “Actually.”

 

Some of this applies to readers, too

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

More advice and observations from novelists and other writers.

  1. “You just have to go on when it is worst and most helpless ― there is only one thing to do with a novel and that is go straight on through to the end of the damn thing.” ―  Ernest Hemingway
  2. “We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.” ― Kurt Vonnegut
  3. “The best advice on writing was given to me by my first editor, Michael Korda, of Simon and Schuster, while writing my first book. ‘Finish your first draft and then we’ll talk,’ he said. It took me a long time to realize how good the advice was. Even if you write it wrong, write and finish your first draft. Only then, when you have a flawed whole, do you know what you have to fix.” ― Dominick Dunne
  4. “Editing might be a bloody trade, but knives aren’t the exclusive property of butchers. Surgeons use them too.” ― Blake Morrison
  5. “Half my life is an act of revision.” ― John Irving
  6. “I’m all for the scissors. I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil.” ― Truman Capote
  7. “It is perfectly okay to write garbage ― as long as you edit brilliantly.” ― C. J. Cherryh
  8. “I’ve found the best way to revise your own work is to pretend that somebody else wrote it and then to rip the living shit out of it.” ― Don Roff
  9. “Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial ‘we’.” ― Mark Twain
  10. “So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.” ― Dr. Seuss

Among the wonders of nature

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

When it comes to flowers, wild or cultivated, just consider …

  1. “Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth, are never alone or weary of life.” — Rachel Carson
  2. “Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.” — May Sarton
  3. “In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” — Margaret Atwood
  4. “Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.” — Hans Christian Andersen
  5. “Colors are the smiles of nature.” — Leigh Hunt
  6. “The earth laughs in flowers.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
  7. “The fairest thing in nature, a flower, still has its roots in earth and manure.” — D. H. Lawrence
  8. “Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light.” — Theodore Roethke
  9. “The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.” — Galileo Galilei
  10. “Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.” — Henry David Thoreau