Writing letter on behalf of your boss

Business letter: the beginning

A. Your company name followed by all contact details (including address, telephone, fax, company url and email).

B. Recipient’s address (including their name and title if you know it).

C. Date on the right- or left-hand side of the page.

D. If required, add the file references, both yours and the recipient’s (use ‘;Ref’as an abbreviation for ‘;reference’).

Business letter. the content

Casual: Dear [first name and surname ]
Formal: Dear Mr [surname ], for a man, or Dear Ms [surname ] for a woman. If you don’t know the name of the recipient, use Dear Sir or Madam or Dear Sir/Madam.

F. Stating the subject of the letter using Re (used as an abbreviation for regarding ).

G. Here are some options for starting your letter:

I would like to enquire about (or whether) …
I am writing regarding …
I am writing in response to …
I am writing to inform you that/of …
I am writing to complain about …
Further to my letter of 15th May…

H. The details of the letter are to be added at this point.

Business letter: the end

I. Here are expressions you can use to end a business letter.

Please let me know if …
I look forward to receiving your reply.
Thank you in advance for your help.
I would be most grateful if you could inform me …

J. For a casual ending, use Regards or Best wishes. A formal ending (if you know the recipient), use Sincerely or Yours sincerely. A formal ending (if you don’t know the recipient): Yours truly or Yours faithfully .

K .
pp. indicates the letter was signed on behalf of someone else
cc: these people have received a copy of the letter
enc. documents are enclosed with this letter

I always understood that Re was a latin word meaning &”about&” and not an abbreviation of regarding.

Have I been wrong all these years?

Posted by Morag Lehmann on 5th February, 2012

We need a Latin scholar to resolve this, but OED says the origin of re (as a preposition) is from classical Latin, re being the ablative case of res (meaning thing or affair ). The OED article goes on to say: &”The form re. probably results from reanalysis as showing an abbreviation for regarding, prep.&”

Posted by Stephen on 6th February, 2012

Dear Macmillan team,
I have been teaching English for the last 8 years, and I was always sure that the post code in an address should be below the town and not behind it. Has anything changed?
I have found plenty of sites with different views on this subject and I would feel a lot better if I knew what to teach my students over here in Germany.
Thank you very much in advance
Kind regards
Stefanie Cole

Posted by Stefanie Cole on 20th June, 2012

Thanks for your comment Stephanie. The UK Post Office recommends that on envelopes the postcode should have a line of its own: postoffice.co.uk/letters-parcels/mailing-guide/clear-addressing .
This is presumably because most post is read automatically and it’s easier to identify a postcode on its own than on a line with other information. In letters, I think it comes down to a matter of personal preference: some people write the postcode on the same line as the city, some on the line after. So I think you can tell your students that either is OK, but that when addressing the envelope they should start the postcode on a new line (I confess that I didn’t know this until I checked the website and have always alternated randomly between the two).

Posted by Macmillan Dictionary on 20th June, 2012

Hi, if the sender’s address is along the bottom of a pre-printed letterhead page, rather than at the top, does the address need to be added again at the top right of the letter?

Posted by Debbie Stevens on 21st June, 2012

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