Hello, Hi, and Howdy captainnemo-ga!
What a fun question! These are exactly the sorts of questions that
catch my eye and make my nerdy self say, ?Ooooooooooh, that looks like
fun!? So, thank you for posting it.
Not surprisingly, the longest of the three lists is the ?Regular
Informal? and the shortest is the ?Regular Formal (Letter).? Okay,
here goes:
Regular Common:
1. Hi!
2. Hello!
3. Good morning!
4. How do you do? (Always makes me think of ?My Fair Lady?)
5. How are you?
6. Greetings!
7. Nice to meet you!
8. Salutations!
9. Welcome!
10. Good Day!
11. Good Evening!
12. Good Night! (more often used in parting, but also used as a greeting)
13. Greetings and Salutations!
14. Good afternoon!
15. Ladies and Gentlemen: (also Ladies: or Gentlemen:)
Regular Informal:
16. Hey!
17. What?s up?
18. Wassup?
19. What?s going down!
20. How?s it going?
21. How YOU doing?
22. G?day!
23. ?Sup?
24. What?s shakin??
25. Howdy!
26. Aloha!
27. Hulloo! (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=halloo)
28. Halloa! (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=halloa)
29. What?s new?
30. Halloo
31. Hullo
32. <Name> (where no greeting is used other than a name)
33. Hail!
34. Shalom!
35. Peace!
36. Yoo hoo!
37. Yo!
38. Hey there!
39. Word!
40. Alright!
41. Ay-up! (found in slang dictionaries)
42. Eh up! (found in slang dictionaries)
43. A-ight!
44. Top of the morning to ya!
45. G?day Mate!
46. Dude!
47. Hiya!
48. ello!
49. Hey ya!
50. Hey baby!
51. Yoyoyo!
52. Whattup?
53. Whazzzzzzzzzzzzup?
54. Hi hi! (usually said with a very perky tone)
55. What?s happening?
56. Cheers!
57. Ciao! (both a greeting and a parting word and, though technically
foreign, also used among English speakers)
58. What?s the good word?
59. What?s the haps?
60. Howzit?
Regular Formal (Letter):
61. Dear <name>:
62. To Whom It May Concern:
63. Dear Sir or Madam: (also Dear Sir: or Dear Madam:)
64. Dear Sir/Madam: (http://www.englishforums.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=827)
Of course, some of the greetings can overlap into more than one
category and it can be somewhat subjective, but I?ve broken it down by
the most common usage.
Oh and no word of a lie, I actually came across this, too, but I
couldn?t bear to put it in your list:
?Yo wassapinin ppl? (Yikes!) I majored in Humanities-English in
college and that one made me wince . . .
Also, as I was researching, I came across something that I thought you
might find interesting (based on this question as well as the other
one that you?ve posted about ?parting words?):
From Dictionary.com:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=salutations&r=67
?Usage Note: The informality of electronic mail poses a problem for
the traditional norms of epistolary style. In a formal e-mail message,
there is nothing out of place in beginning with a formula such as Dear
Professor Fillmore and closing with Very truly yours. Since e-mail is
a relatively new medium for communication, however, set phrases for
informal greetings and closings are still being established. At times,
the salutation and valediction are left out entirely, even when the
correspondents do not know each other well. Informal salutations
include common greetings like Hi or simply the addressee's name.
People have been much more creative with the closing, employing terms
such as best wishes and cheers, the latter term previously associated
with British use and perhaps adopted because it sounds a neutral note
between the kind of closings used in letters and phone calls. Still
more informal is TTFN, an abbreviation for ta-ta for now, another
Briticism.?
In case it might be of use to you, a handy reference site for writing
formal business letters can be found here:
http://www.business-letter-writing.com/
I hope you find this list helpful! It was fun to work on your question
and interesting (and in some cases, surprising, disappointing,
shocking, etc.) to see what?s out there. Good luck to you! Should you
need any further clarification, please do not hesitate to let me know.
I?m happy to help!
Sincerely,
Boquinha-ga
Search Strategy:
I?m an avid e-mailer, so some of these come from my own interactions
with friends, family, etc. and many came from my own head and from
discussions with my husband, and the rest I found by researching.
Search Terms Used:
Greeting sayings
Greet sayings
Hi
Greetings
Greetings list
Hello synonyms
Salutations
Thesaurus
Formal letter
Introductions
Slang dictionary
Good day hello hi howdy
Formal letter greetings
Business letter greetings
Business letter salutation
Of note: Believe it or not, I found a whole bunch of greetings by
perusing the list of introductions here (pretty impressive in its
diversity):
http://www.car-forums.com/s25/ |
