BS: How common is this in letters & emails?

Subject: BS: How common is this in letters & emails?
From: Mr Red
Date: 15 Oct 15 - 06:43 PM

Many years ago a girlfriend (5ft 2, eyes of blue, Irish colleen oh the memories) signed off her letters (no e-mails then, or not that I knew of) with

XOXOX

X as kisses &
O as hugs (think arms)

So is this a rare thing or did it just not figure in my family/contemporaries' missives?

Subject: RE: BS: How common is this in letters & emails?
From: maeve
Date: 15 Oct 15 - 06:47 PM

Common for many years within and prior to my experiences, Mr. Red. Another was and is SWAK (sealed with a kiss).

Subject: RE: BS: How common is this in letters & emails?
From: michaelr
Date: 15 Oct 15 - 06:54 PM

Quite common in the US.

Subject: RE: BS: How common is this in letters & emails?
From: frogprince
Date: 15 Oct 15 - 08:38 PM

OXXX would make an interesting variation...

Subject: RE: BS: How common is this in letters & emails?
From: meself
Date: 15 Oct 15 - 11:37 PM

Dare I ask why? I remember all kinds of variations from my long-gone days as a lady's man. Variations of X's and O's, that is .... Even the occasional F and U. In that order.

Subject: RE: BS: How common is this in letters & emails?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Oct 15 - 01:06 AM

Yeah, that XO thing has been common in the US all MY life, and that's a long, long time.

SWAK seems more recent. For a while, I thought it meant something violent, like a whack! on the butt...

-Joe, who was always a tad dense-

Subject: RE: BS: How common is this in letters & emails?
From: meself
Date: 16 Oct 15 - 01:18 AM

This is the first I've heard of SWAK.

Subject: RE: BS: How common is this in letters & emails?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 16 Oct 15 - 01:43 AM

It was SWALK (Sealed with a loving kiss) in my youth. (UK)

Subject: RE: BS: How common is this in letters & emails?
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Oct 15 - 02:17 AM

Yes, SWALK was around from when I first got involved in such things (late 60s', UK). Older than that maybe:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.W.A.L.K.

Subject: RE: BS: How common is this in letters & emails?
From: Bert
Date: 16 Oct 15 - 03:27 AM

I remember SWALK from the mid Fifties.

Subject: RE: BS: How common is this in letters & emails?
From: Mr Red
Date: 16 Oct 15 - 04:55 AM

I always thought "Hugs & Kisses" was common among groups I was not part of.

SWALK was, I was told, common among soldiers during WW2. Usually on the back of the envelope. Now that the thread is morphing into acronyms on letters I do know these
ITALY
EGYPT
BOLTOP
NORWICH

Subject: RE: BS: How common is this in letters & emails?
From: GUEST,Peter
Date: 16 Oct 15 - 05:03 AM

Don't forget BURMA

There was a great Peter Cook sketch where he was dictating a telegram to be signed off "NORWICH".

Subject: RE: BS: How common is this in letters & emails?
From: Mr Red
Date: 16 Oct 15 - 11:46 AM

HOLLAND

Subject: RE: BS: How common is this in letters & emails?
From: Mr Red
Date: 16 Oct 15 - 01:25 PM

Wiki link above I vaguely remember CHINA and all above but some of them in the link are new to me.

Was there ever one for Spain?

Subject: RE: BS: How common is this in letters & emails?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Oct 15 - 01:32 PM

"Acronym        Definition
SPAIN        Social Policy Ageing Information Network (UK)"

-- from an acronym weblist
.,,.

Not quite one of the interestingly suggestive ones like the others, tho...

Subject: RE: BS: How common is this in letters & emails?
From: Mr Red
Date: 17 Oct 15 - 03:50 AM

There used to be a pub near me called the Spa Inn and with their typeface and small space I was fooled several times (driving past) by reading it as SPAIN. Strange how the mind works when it is already occupied on other tasks.

Subject: RE: BS: How common is this in letters & emails?
From: Mr Red
Date: 17 Oct 15 - 04:00 AM

LOVE acronyms

Subject: RE: BS: How common is this in letters & emails?
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 17 Oct 15 - 04:04 AM

A vague memory of, I think, a Morcambe and Wise sketch where a letter gets finished with CONSTANTINOPLE. No explanation of course.

Subject: RE: BS: How common is this in letters & emails?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Oct 15 - 05:10 AM

How about, as a quick attempt --

Come On Now, Site Thine Arse Near The Intimate Nucleus Of People's Lively Expectations

???

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: How common is this in letters & emails?
From: Mr Red
Date: 17 Oct 15 - 07:43 AM

What would you make of ROME?

Ride On My ............. well you get the idea

Subject: RE: BS: How common is this in letters & emails?
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 17 Oct 15 - 07:56 AM

From the Sixties I remember SWAKBDLIGTYH = "Sealed With A Kiss But Don't Let It Go To Your Head".

I was familiar ('50s and '60s) with SWAK and the Xs and Os things, but seldom used them. I didn't dot my "i"s with hearts, either.

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: How common is this in letters & emails?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 17 Oct 15 - 09:42 AM

I remember the girls' use of SWAK (no L), along with
X's and O's, when I was in high school in Minnesota, in
the early to mid 1940s.   Never addressed to me though, alas!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: How common is this in letters & emails?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 17 Oct 15 - 12:52 PM

Mr Red and SPA INN: I was fooled into thinking there was a chain of Italian restaurants called ALLBARONE!

Subject: RE: BS: How common is this in letters & emails?
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 18 Oct 15 - 12:48 PM

Back to Xs and Os but not in mail. A relative was gaining weight while I was losing it. She gave me her thick bright red cotton sweater, knit in the style of Irish fishermen's sweaters, with some rows of stitches that look like Xs and Os, each on top of the other, from the top to bottom of the sweater. She called them hugs and kisses stitches. The sweater came from the Land's End company, and I don't think they company has continued to make them. I get lots of compliments on that sweater.

Subject: RE: BS: How common is this in letters & emails?
From: EBarnacle
Date: 18 Oct 15 - 04:26 PM

As long as we are discussing initialisms, I still have not found any attribution of RTFM that goes back further than Dick Greenhaus's. He said that he heard it from a veteran at his engineering school between WW II and Korea. Anyone have anything earlier? Dick's citation definitely predates Wikipedia's citation of the earliest written usage as being Korean War.

Subject: RE: BS: How common is this in letters & emails?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Oct 15 - 05:34 PM

Does RTFM mean "Make sure you are conversant with the works of Dr Alex Comfort"?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: How common is this in letters & emails?
From: Gurney
Date: 18 Oct 15 - 07:42 PM

Mr Red's website has a reading for BURMA, but not the one that I, and possibly Guest Peter, know. Be Undressed Ready My Angel.

Subject: RE: BS: How common is this in letters & emails?
From: GUEST,Peter
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 04:36 AM

That's the one that I know although apart from SWALK I have only come across any of them in comedy sketches.

I was mistaken about the telegram sketch, it was Alan Bennett not Peter Cook. It is on YouTube.

Subject: RE: BS: How common is this in letters & emails?
From: Mr Red
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 08:00 AM

I must have removed the acronyms from my website, don't remember them properly being there! I can't see where I put them now. But I always understood BURMA to be as posted by Gurney. Or maybe with Upstairs variations.