SmithWriting Blog

Whether you’re concluding a business letter or signing off an e-mail, you most likely end the correspondence you send with a closing of some kind.

Depending on the context of the note you’re sending—and your relationship to the recipient—you’ll either sign off formally or informally. And sometimes it’s not very clear how you should end a letter or e-mail. Many people struggle with closings, and some opt to take the easy way out and just sign their name, no closing at all.

Well, for those of us who like to go out with a little flair, I’ve compiled a list of closings, from the conventional to the cheeky:

Best regards
Best
All best
Best wishes
Regards
Warm regards

Sincerely
Respectfully
Fondly
Truly
Yours truly
Take care
Thank you
Many thanks
Cheers

Always
Yours
Love
With love
Peace
xoxoxo

Ciao
Peace out
Rock on
Later gator
Smell ya later
Namaste
Over and out
TTFN

Feel free to add your favorite closings in the comments section.

Until next time,
Rebecca

Filed by rebecca at 4:53 pm under For the love of words
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Idiom (noun): An expression whose meanings cannot be inferred from the meanings of the words that make it up

Idioms. We all use them. We all know what they mean. But do we know where these far-out phrases came from? I decided to find out. Here are a few of my favorite idioms and their origins:

The bee’s knees: excellent
American, circa 1920.
There’s no definitive origin for this one. Some ascribe it to the fact that bees carry their valuable pollen in sacks on their legs. Others believe it came from world-renowned Charleston dancer Bee Jackson.

Three sheets to the wind: drunk
British, circa 1820.
Nautical. On ships, “sheets” are the ropes that hold the sails in place. If three sheets are loose, then the sails will blow haphazardly, and the ship will stagger like a drunk.

Down to the wire: until the last possible moment
American, late 1800s.
From the sport of horse racing, in which close races were determined by a wire strung across the track above the finish line.

Long in the tooth: old
British, circa 1850.
Another phrase with equine origins. Apparently, horses’ teeth grow with age.

Raining cats and dogs: raining very heavily
British, circa 1700.
This one is gross: When it rained heavily in jolly old England, dead animals would wash down the streets with other garbage.

The whole nine yards: all of something
American, circa 1964.
There are a lot of conflicting origins for this phrase, but most folks believe that it came out of the American military. Other proposed sources: It comes from the 9-cubic-yard capacity of concrete trucks and it was a medieval test requiring a person to walk nine paces over hot coals.

Sources: Webster’s New World College Dictionary, www.phrases.org.uk, www.thefreedictionary.com, www.goenglish.com, www.wikipedia.org

Filed by rebecca at 9:05 am under For the love of words
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Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the past few months, you’re aware that there’s a recession going on. But did you know that this economic downturn has generated its own vocabulary?

Here’s a list of words to help you get through this fiscal fiasco:

Recessionista: A style maven on a budget.

Obamanomics: The president’s plan to fix our ailing economy.

Furlough: Unpaid—and often unwelcome—time off from work.

Furcation: A vacation taken while on furlough.

Vulture vacationer: A traveler who takes advantage of the low costs caused by the recession.

Zombie bank: A bank that cannot lend money but stays in business due to government support.

Nationalization: When the government steps in to run failed businesses.

Bailout: The money failed businesses get from taxpayers before they face nationalization.

Staycation: A vacation at home because you can’t afford to travel anywhere.

The latter two terms are so overused that they made the 2009 banished words list.

Have any of your own financial phrases to share? We’d love to hear them!

Filed by rebecca at 12:22 pm under For the love of words
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In honor of World Poetry Day (March 21), I’d like to share a poem I wrote when I was 9 years old:

Happy

Now I’m happy,
really happy,
I’m really having fun,
hopping, skipping,
jumping, running,
yelling to everyone!

“Happy” actually won an honorable mention award in a national poetry contest (not bad for a fourth-grader). Watch out, Walt Whitman …

Although I’ve gotten away from writing poetry, I still enjoy reading it very much. And I’ll be sure to take some time on March 21 to read some of my favorite poems by Emily Dickinson, Shel Silverstein, and Billy Collins.

Here’s wishing you all a “Happy” World Poetry Day!

Filed by rebecca at 11:56 am under For the love of words
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This March 15 is the 2,053rd anniversary of the assassination of Julius Caesar. It’s a day known as “the ides of March”—and a day filled with foreboding for many.

In the ancient Roman calendar, the “ides” was the 15th day of March, May, July, and October and the 13th day of the other eight months. The ides was originally marked by a full moon.

The word “ides” (circa 1330) originates from the French “ides” and the Latin “idus,” meaning the eighth day after nones. Huh? Well, “nones,” in reference to the same Roman calendar, was the ninth day before the ides of each month, or the 7th day of March, May, July, and October and the 5th day of other months. The first day of each month was the “calends.” Seems unnecessarily complicated to me, but, then again, I wasn’t around 2,000 years ago, marking time by the moon.

In modern times, we rarely use the terms “ides,” “nones,” and “calends.” However, due in no small part to William Shakespeare, “the ides of March” has become a well-known metaphor for impending doom.

In his play Julius Caesar, Shakespeare has a soothsayer utter the infamous line, “Beware the ides of March,” to Caesar. (I don’t know about you, but if someone who could predict the future told me to beware of a certain day, I sure as heck would lock my doors, call my bodyguards, and stay holed up inside all day. But not Caesar; he scoffed the warning.) On his way to the senate-house on March 15, foolish Caesar actually taunts the soothsayer, saying, “The ides of March are come.” To which the soothsayer sagely replies, “Ay, Caesar; but not gone.”

Well, as we all know, the soothsayer was right: Caesar didn’t live to see the end of March 15. Instead, a group of senators who claimed that he was trying to reinstate the monarchy stabbed him to death on that fateful day.

Now, whether you fear the ides of March or celebrate it—as a group of Italians do with a toga run through the streets of Rome—at least now you know a bit about its history and lore. So venture out at your own risk.

Filed by rebecca at 4:34 pm under For the love of words
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Well, who can blame you, with all the thousands of regional expressions floating around out there?

I grew up in Rhode Island, where we drank water out of bubblers (water fountains) and devoured cabinets (milkshakes) as special treats. I thought everyone did the same, until I met my husband (a Midwesterner) and learned that every corner of the nation has its own quirky lexicon.

Now, thanks to the good folks at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, many of this country’s regional phrases are all together in one place: The Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE).

This collection of books documents the varieties of English found in each tiny pocket of the United States. In fact, DARE is based on interviews conducted in all 50 states and on a comprehensive collection of written materials from the colonial period to the present.

The first book, Volume I (letters A-C), was published 25 years ago. Subsequent volumes (up to the letters Sk) have come out since, and Volume V, containing the remainder of the alphabet, is scheduled for publication this year.

I can’t wait to get my hands on the whole collection. Because not only is DARE a great way to pass down old sayings that might otherwise die off, it’s a colorful testament to the rich culture and diversity of this country.

Here’s a sampling of entries:

railroad daisy (n) also railroad flower. North Dakota, Eastern Montana, Louisiana, Kentucky:
Black-eyed Susan. So named because the flower can grow in sunny, gravelly areas like those alongside railroad tracks.

Adam’s housecat (n) chiefly S. Atlantic and Gulf States:
An idiom, as in “I don’t know him from Adam’s housecat.”

garden house (n) chiefly Mid Atlantic:
An outhouse. So named because they were typically built in a garden of a country house.

scramble (n) also scramble dinner. Northern Illinois:
A potluck dinner.

discomgollifusticated (adj) also discumgalligumfricated. New England:
Discombobulated. “The jet lag and lack of sleep made him irritable and discomgollifusticated.”

larruping (adj) Texas, Oklahoma:
Delicious, excellent (esp. of food). “Now that’s one larrupin’ good pie.”

nebby (adj) also nebby-nosed. chiefly Pennsylvania:
Snoopy, inquisitive. “I heard the gossip from her nebby neighbor.”

mubble-squibble (n) North Carolina:
A noogie; the act of rubbing one’s knuckles on a person’s head so as to produce a mildly painful sensation.

Have any of your own regional expressions to share? We’d love to hear them!

Filed by rebecca at 8:27 pm under For the love of words
8 Comments

A palindrome is a word, phrase, or sentence that reads the same backward or forward.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the term comes from the Greek palindromos, meaning “a recurrence” or, literally, “a running back” (palin “again, back” + dromos “a running”).

There are lots out there, but here is a small sampling:

• a man, a plan, a canal, Panama
• Eve
• eye
• Hannah
• kayak
• kinnikinnik (I have actually kayaked the Kinnikinnik River in Wisconsin!)
• level
• madam, I’m Adam
• never odd or even
• radar
• rise to vote, sir (I got this one from The Simpsons’ Comic Book Guy)
• rotor
• so many dynamos

… and the always useful

• yo, banana boy!

If you have any favorite palindromes, don’t nod; post them in the comments section.

Filed by rebecca at 9:39 pm under For the love of words
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Back in September, I posted some of my favorite bawdy terms from the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue: A Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence (Digest Books, Inc.), a collection of late 18th- and early 19th-century British slang and colloquialisms.

Since we all got such a kick out of the first batch, I’ve gone ahead and pulled a few more crude yet comical entries:

Beetle-headed: Dull, stupid.

Beggar maker: A publican or ale-house keeper.

Clack: A tongue; chiefly applied to women; a simile drawn from the clack of a water-mill.

Gutfoundered: Exceeding hungry.

Knowledge box: The head.

Low tide: When there is no money in a man’s pocket.

Morning drop: The gallows.

One of my cousins: A woman of the town; a harlot.

Pompkin: A man or woman of Boston in America; from the number of pompkins raised and eaten by the people of that country.

Resurrection men: Persons employed by the students in anatomy to steal dead bodies out of church-yards.

Word pecker: A punster; one who plays upon words.

A large volume of words in the dictionary are denigrative to women, signifying the inferior role of women in that culture (and the prevalence of prostitution). For example, the term “noozed” means both “married” and “hanged”—not the most positive view of marriage.

Likewise, the book contains dozens of terms about drinking and gluttony. “Barrel fever” is when one kills oneself by drinking, and “casting up one’s accounts” means vomiting. Clearly, debauchery was rampant in this society.

Read my original scoundrels’ dictionary post.

Filed by rebecca at 12:58 pm under For the love of words
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Each year, Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., releases its “List of Words to Be Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness.”

Compiled from thousands of nominations, the list is comprised of overused words and phrases and pet peeves from everyday speech, the media, technology, advertising, and politics.

Here are a few terms from the list that I would love to see banned in 2009:

bailout
Even after hearing the economic term a million times, I still can’t say I understand what it is exactly. I mean, couldn’t we all use a rescue from financial difficulties?

first dude
Cute. But I find “first gentleman” a bit more distinguished, personally.

green
This word drew the most nominations to the list, and I completely agree that it should be banned. Don’t get me wrong: I’m a longtime supporter of protecting the environment, but I’ve never approved of the widespread overuse of this term (and I cringe when I hear “green” used as a verb!).

not so much
It’s fine for high school parlance, but, beyond that, this phrase is completely useless. What’s wrong with “no”?

staycation
Here’s one neologism I’d like to send away on a permanent vacation.

<3 (a texted heart)
Sorry, it looks like a bum to me.

The rest of the list:

• carbon footprint/offsetting
• desperate search
• game-changer
• icon/iconic
• it’s that time of year again
• maverick
• monkey (as a suffix on the Internet)
• Wall Street/Main Street
• winner of five nominations

Filed by rebecca at 3:38 pm under For the love of words
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Like many of you, I grew up listening to Christmas carols at this time of year. It just wasn’t Christmastime in our house until Burl Ives and the Ray Conniff Singers could be heard belting out their upbeat messages of peace and happiness and joy.

Today, my iPod plays many of the same songs my parents’ old record player used to spin. But, ever since I was a child, there are some lyrics that have always made me pause.

This year, I decided to research and define some of the more puzzling terms from my favorite Christmas carols:

We want some figgy pudding
We want some figgy pudding
We want some figgy pudding
Please bring it right here!
- “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”

figgy pudding (noun): A traditional English dessert from the 16th century. A steamed, cake-like treat filled with dried fruits and liqueurs; also known as Christmas pudding or plum pudding.

The horse was lean and lank;
Misfortune seemed his lot;
He got into a drifted bank,
And we, we got upsot.
- “Jingle Bells”

upsot (adj): Overturned (19th century).
There exists some debate on the meaning of the word. Some say that it means “intoxicated.”

The cattle are lowing,
the poor Baby wakes,
But little Lord Jesus,
no crying He makes.
- “Away in a Manger”

low (verb): To utter the sound made by cattle; moo.
(an example of onomatopoeia)

Hark! the herald angels sing
“Glory to the newborn King
Peace on earth and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!”
- “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”

hark (verb): To listen; pay attention (c.1175), from Old English *heorcian.

Don we now our gay apparel
Fa-la-la, la-la-la, la-la-la.
Troll the ancient Yule-tide carol
Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la.
- “Deck the Halls”

troll (verb): To sing in a full, rolling voice (c.1575).

Now let’s get out there and troll some Christmas carols!

Filed by rebecca at 12:59 pm under For the love of words
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