Letter

Categories: Letters

For other uses, see Letter (disambiguation).
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A letter is a written message from one party to another. Letters are usually intended to be received by someone far away. Before widespread availability of typewriters and computers, letters were always written by hand. Nowadays, letters are only widely used by companies who send out letters to large numbers of people, who may not have access to the internet for e-mail. The term letter is sometimes used for e-mail messages with a formal letter-like format.

Contents

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Advantages

Letters are still used, particularly by companies and advertisers. This is because of three main advantages:

  • No special device needed - almost everybody has a home, which means they are easy to reach. A letterbox is all that the intended recipient needs - not like e-mail or phone-calls where you need access to a computer and a telephone respectively.
  • "Catch-all" advertising- unlike e-mails, where the recipient needs an individual e-mail address to receive messages, addresses are not chosen (per se), and so with the help of postal services, delivering an advertisement to all homes in a particular area is not hard.
  • Physical record - an important advantage of letters is that important messages that need to be retained (eg receipts) can be kept.
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The letter-delivering process

Here is how a letter gets from the sender to the recipient:

  1. Sender writes letter and buys a stamp, which he places on the front of the envelope.
  2. Sender puts his letter in a postbox and does nothing more.
  3. The National Postal Service for the sender's country (e.g. the Royal Mail in the UK or the US Postal Service in the US) empties the letterbox and takes all the contents to the regional sorting office
  4. The sorting office then sort each letter by address and postcode, and deliver the letters belonging to a particular area to that area's post office. Letters belonging to a different region are sent to that region's sorting office, to be sorted further.
  5. The local post office dispatches their letters to their postmen who deliver them to the appropriate houses.

This whole process, depending on how for away the sender / recipient are, takes about 2-3 days. International mail is sent via trains and planes to other countries.

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Letter Layout

The following is the normal way to set out a letter: (Note: This is the style in the UK. The American letter format is different.)

Sender's address here
24 Lambert Street
Stoke-on-Trent
ST4 4WE









Recipient's name and address here
Mr. Jimmy Wales
25 Lambert Street
Stoke-on-Trent
ST4 4WE
Date here
Formal: 29/08/2005 Informal: 29 August 2005
Content here
Formal: Dear Sir, Informal: Dear Jimmy,
Content
Formal: Yours sincerely, Informal: Best wishes,
Sender's Name
Formal: Sender's Occupation and Enclosures Informal: Nothing (optional: PS / Post Script = Afterthought)

The following is a typical American format for a business letter:

Sender's address here
24 Evergreen Terrace
Springfield, IL 12345






Date here
Formal: August 25, 2005 Informal: 8/25/05



Recipient's name and address here
Mr. John Brown
25 First Street
Anytown, VA 10005


Content here
Formal: Dear Sir, Informal: Dear Jimmy,
Content
Closing Here
Formal: Sincerely, Informal: Best Wishes,
Signature here
Typed full name here












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Types of letters

Letter Name Typical Sign-off
business letter

Yours sincerely

chain letter

Best wishes

epistle

Anything

junk mail

Yours sincerely / Hope to see you in our store soon

Letter of Credence

Yours sincerely

letter of credit

Yours sincerely

letter of introduction

Nice meeting you / Hope to hear from you soon.

letter of safe passage or Carte blanche

Again, Wishing you a safe passage

love letter

Missing you every second / Other such love comment

personal letter

Best wishes / Cheers

open letter

Anything

letters patent

Anything

letter of marque

Anything

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See also


ca:Lletra da:Brev de:Brief es:Epístola nl:brief no:Brev zh:字母 ja:手紙 fr:correspondance