----- Original Message ----- From: sbshai - sbshai@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: an answer Regarding Amy's question about whether or not there should be a period after the signature in a formal letter, I believe there should not -- for the reason she cited: this is not found in business letter samples from any English speaking country. Regardless of the fact that more than a few ESL students put a period there, I don't think it's standard practice in Israel either! In any case, whenever rules of punctuation (or anything else) differ in Hebrew and English, we should point this out and require the accepted way according to English. One way to explain why there's no period after a signature is to tell students that the purpose of a period is to indicate the end of a sentence; since the signature does not constitute a sentence, there's no point (pun intended!) in having it there. Ask them to note the difference in the following: Her name is Betty Boop. Sincerely, Betty Boop ----------------------------------------------- ** The ETNI Rag ** http://www.etni.org/etnirag/ Much more than just a journal ** Etni homepage - http://www.etni.org or - http://www.etni.org.il ** ** for help - ask@xxxxxxxx ** ** to post to this list - etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ** -----------------------------------------------