In Norway, "mvh", an abbreviation for "med vennlig hilsen" (literally, "with friendly regards") is standard. I'm often asked how to translate that into business English, and I'm as stumped as everyone else. There doesn't seem to be an obvious choice.
So this past year I was working some for LargeCorp and had the same question: how to sign off emails?
I really liked "V/R" or "VR" that the Navy uses, so I decided to go with that. But what about a tag line? A contact card? Some kind of indication of who I was and where I was working?
After some thought, I put together a V-Card with my contact information. Also, just to screw with people, I put a nice little latin quote at the end. I think the first one was "Sona si Latine loqueris"
Or translated, "Honk if you speak Latin"
Nobody spotted it.
Well since I got away with that, I couldn't let the experiment rest, so I changed my latin quote every month or so. I had "Age, catamite - fac mihi hunc diem felicissimum!" -- go ahead punk, make my day. I had "Te audire no possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure" -- I can't hear you, I have a banana in my ear. One of my favorites was "Utinam logica falsa tuam philosophiam totam suffodiant!" -- may faulty logic undermine your entire philosophy! Which, unfortunately, was true for many of my correspondents.
Nobody ever bothered to look this stuff up. I imagine as long as you're not directly insulting to the reader, it's not that big of a deal. (But if you're a bit of a prankster, there's some fun to be had!)
Do you actually know Latin, or are you using a translation service?
One of my signatures for the longest time was "Eta erat cuando hic adveni", which I believe means "It was like that when I got here", but I'd really like to get someone to verify that. (Someone who aced some difficult exam - GRE? GMAT? - proudly said they knew Latin, and were pretty stumped.)
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[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 70.4 ms ] threadThe only time I dont is on my work email when interacting with clients - when I use regards.
I often use "sincerely", but never "yours sincerely" - I'm sincere but I'm not the chattel of the recipient.
Silly me for assuming a technical issue would be addressed on Hacker News.
I'm [enter my name here] and I approve of this message.
I really liked "V/R" or "VR" that the Navy uses, so I decided to go with that. But what about a tag line? A contact card? Some kind of indication of who I was and where I was working?
After some thought, I put together a V-Card with my contact information. Also, just to screw with people, I put a nice little latin quote at the end. I think the first one was "Sona si Latine loqueris"
Or translated, "Honk if you speak Latin"
Nobody spotted it.
Well since I got away with that, I couldn't let the experiment rest, so I changed my latin quote every month or so. I had "Age, catamite - fac mihi hunc diem felicissimum!" -- go ahead punk, make my day. I had "Te audire no possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure" -- I can't hear you, I have a banana in my ear. One of my favorites was "Utinam logica falsa tuam philosophiam totam suffodiant!" -- may faulty logic undermine your entire philosophy! Which, unfortunately, was true for many of my correspondents.
Nobody ever bothered to look this stuff up. I imagine as long as you're not directly insulting to the reader, it's not that big of a deal. (But if you're a bit of a prankster, there's some fun to be had!)
One of my signatures for the longest time was "Eta erat cuando hic adveni", which I believe means "It was like that when I got here", but I'd really like to get someone to verify that. (Someone who aced some difficult exam - GRE? GMAT? - proudly said they knew Latin, and were pretty stumped.)
--Jim