Yours sincerely and yours faithfully don’t actually mean anything, they are just conventionalised closing. We use yours sincerely in informal letters or message and we tend to use yours faithfully informal letters or messages. It is part of a basic format any letter without conventionalised closing is unfinished, to finish a letter on the right note using yours sincerely and yours faithfully is important.
Yours faithfully and yours sincerely might look alike but both of them have their different meaning and different salutation. They even have different basic format.
Yours Sincerely vs Yours Faithfully
The main difference between yours sincerely and yours faithfully is that we use yours sincerely in informal letters or message and we tend to use yours faithfully in formal letters or messages. We use your sincerely in salutation like Dear Mr/Mrs/Miss on the other hand we use yours faithfully in salutation like Dear man/sir.
You use yours sincerely if you know someone by their name, you know someone by their address in such scenarios we use yours sincerely. Yours faithfully is used in case of a business letter via when you don’t know the detail of the person, you’re sending a letter to then we use yours faithfully
Yours sincerely is an adverb it means with sincere or genuinely. It is also a British drive word. You can use yours sincerely in informal letters. Yours faithfully is also an adverb it means loyalty. It is also a British drive word. You can use yours faithfully formal letters.
Comparison Table Between Yours Sincerely and Yours Faithfully (in Tabular Form)
| Parameters of Comparison | Yours Sincerely | Yours Faithfully |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Informal letter | Formal letter |
| Salutation | Dear Mr/Mrs/miss | Dear sir/mam |
| Situation | Friendly letters | Business letters |
| Recipient | Known recipient | Unknown recipient |
| Condition | Formal/informal | Formal |
What is Yours Sincerely?
It doesn’t actually mean anything. We just use it as conventionalised closing. It is part of the basic format; our letter is unfinished without using it. We use yours sincerely if we know the detail about the recipient like name, address, etc. In such cases, we use yours sincerely. We use it in informal letters but it can be use in both formal and formal. Sincerely is an adverb it means sincere or genuine. If your letter starts with the salutation like dear Mrs/Ms/ Miss you can use it.
For example, in the salutation, you can write ‘Dear Miss Eli smith,’ and in the complimentary close, you can write ‘Yours sincerely, Jack Johnson.
Or, you can write ‘Dear Mr Harlow,’ and in the complimentary close, you can write ‘yours sincerely, Jason blaha.
What is Yours Faithfully?
It also doesn’t mean anything by itself. We also use it as conventionalised closing. It is part of basic format; we tend to use your faithfully if we don’t know details about that person. Yours faithfully is used in formal letters or business letters. Yours faithfully is also an adverb it means loyalty.
It is used at the end of the letter. If you don’t know the details of the recipient but only know his/her gender then you can greet by dear sir/ Madam. The right complimentary closing would be yours faithfully followed by your initials and surname, in such case, the salutation would read ‘Dear Madam’ and the complimentary close would be ‘Yours faithfully, jack johnson.
For example, you can write ‘Dear sir/ madam,’ and in complimentary close, you can write ‘yours faith fully, Jason smith.
You should use the correct complimentary closing according to the salutation, nowadays none- business letters are less formal today but still, you should use the written closing according to the salutation.
Main Differences Between Yours Sincerely and Yours Faithfully
- We use yours sincerely and yours faithfully according to salutation like we use your sincerely in informal letters in which we know the details of the recipient like name addresses etc and we use yours faithfully in formal or business letters, in this we don’t know the details of the recipient we only know his/ her gender then we should use yours faithfully.
- Yours sincerely is an adverb it means with sincere or genuinely and yours faithfully is also an adverb that implies loyalty.
- Using your sincerely and your faithfully according to the necessary situation or salutation is important for example we use yours sincerely in an informal letter when we know the details of the recipient like name or address it starts with the solution dear Mrs/ Mr/ Miss, whereas we use yours faithfully in a formal letter or business letter where we only know the persons gender like dear sir/madam.
- We can use yours sincerely in both formal/ informal letters but we can use faithfully only in formal letters.
- The recipient in the formal letter is unknown whereas the recipient in an informal letter is known
Conclusion
Your sincerely and your faithfully is necessary to use in a letter according to the right salutation. You should know the nature of the letter before using any complimentary closing. You can analyse the nature of the letter by the salutation.
if your letter starts with Dear Mrs/ Mr/ Miss then you should know that it’s an informal letter you’re writing this letter to a known recipient then you should use yours sincerely as a complimentary closing and end with your name.
References
- https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=YGOgYEpMvmcC&oi=fnd&pg=PA153&dq=Yours+Sincerely+and+Yours+Faithfully&ots=pRm3EltZOL&sig=utlzWtqHRWgxZSvGkGAT3g5mc1Q
- https://repozytorium.amu.edu.pl/bitstream/10593/17994/1/06Drazdauskiene.pdf