What does it mean when a letter is signed with &c?
It means "et cetera" and is used when someone is signing for a group of people, not just themselves. Think of it as & Co. (or "and company") -- usually added to a business name to imply there is more then one person involved.
When signing a letter with "xoxoxoxo"... what does the "x" mean and what does the "o" mean
Hugs and Kisses is a term for a sequence of the letters X and O, e.g. XOXO, typically used by lovers to express affection at the end of a written letter or email. It is debatable which letter represents which act. Some interpret X as the crossed arms of a hug and O as the puckered lips of a kiss. However, the interpretation assumed in the following, in which X represents a the four lips of a kiss and O the four arms of a hug, is more common. The use of XOXO goes back to the use of an X or cross, which was considered as good as a sworn oath in times before most people could write and therefore used the X in the same way a signature is used today — a mark of one's word. An X at the end of a letter or document was often kissed as a seal of honesty, in much the same way one would kiss a Bible or kiss the fingers after making the sign of the cross, thus the X came to represent a kiss in modern times. The origins of the O as a hug are not generally known, although it is speculated that it may represent the arms wrapped around someone being hugged. Another thought is that it came from Jewish immigrants who would sign with an O instead of an X because they did not wish to mark their word with the obviously non-Jewish cross the X represented.
What does signed: "xxx" mean at the end of a letter?
Kisses xoxo = kisses & hugs
If a letter from a company is not signed, is it still a legal document, or can it be ignored?
It is usually risky to ignore something of legal significance simply because you think there is a flaw in how it was produced. That’s a little like ignoring a charging angry elephant because you think he doesn’t mean it.“Legal document” is not a single specific thing. Letters may have legal significance in a variety of ways. They could be offers, acceptances, rejections, notices, threats, statements of facts. At the very least, they establish that somebody communicated a certain thing and, if applicable, that a recipient received the communication. In most cases the lack of signature on a letter makes no difference.A signature, usually, is simply a form of documentation that the person identified as authoring or approving a document actually did so. In many or most cases that proof is either irrelevant or unnecessary. For example, if a company wants to notify you of something, say the water company telling you that your service will be disconnected if you do not pay, it does not matter whether it is signed or not, the water company sent you a notice and you got the notice.Signatures are required only in specific legal situations — assigning a copyright, selling a house, drafting a will, reporting your taxes, depending on the jurisdiction. In some cases, such as filing for a corporation in the US, the signature requirement does not come from any underlying law but is just part of an agency’s administrative process. If the agency decides to accept a document without a signature they can do so. There are occasional cases where a lack of signature, or a forged signature, raises the question of whether the person was in fact party to the document. That usually becomes an evidentiary question, not one of whether the document, if authored as purported, would be valid.
What does pp mean when signing a letter on behalf of someone else?
per pro (that's not the full second word; it's Latin)...it just means that one person is signing a the letter as an agent for another person. So if a secretary is signing his/her boss's name to a letter, it should look like this: secretary's name p.p. boss's name
When you p.p a letter, whos name do you sign?
Correct procedure is as follows. After the "yours sincerely" or however you normally finish a letter, leave a space (usually about six lines) for signature and type your boss's name underneath, with his/her title under that. You hand-write "p.p." in front of his/her name. You then sign in the signature space with your own name. You are quite right that under no circumstances do you sign in anyone else's name and whoever told you to do that is totally wrong. Even if it was your boss!
How do you sign a letter when you want to indicate that it has been dictated?
If you dictated it, you sign it. If you didn't dictate it, you sign it, and then put PP followed by the name of the person who did. PP means 'per pro', or 'through and on behalf of'. Or if the name of the person is already on the letter, you put your signature just above it, with the pp. It means you are signing it on their behalf and in their absence. So: John Smith pp Peter Magnus
What happens if a recommendation letter is not signed across the seal/flap?
The worst that would happen would be that the letter would be returned to its author with instructions to sign and resend it or that the college would inform the applicant that a new letter would have to be sent. However, if there is a due date for letters and this mishap caused the new or returned letter to be received late and no extension were granted, the application could be rejected. I think that most colleges would grant a time extension, but I do not know this for sure. If this has actually happened in your case and time is running short, phone the admissions office and find out what to do. Likewise, if the teacher told you that s/he forgot to sign it, phone the admissions office, tell them that the unsigned letter is on its way and ask what to do, whether or not time is running short. Good luck.