greeting

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Translations of the word welcome are often shown in many places frequented by foreigners or tourists, such as airports and hotels, to welcome people of all different nationalities.

Greeting (also called accosting) is an act of communication in which human beings (as well as other members of the animal kingdom) intentionally make their presence known to each other, to show attention to, and to suggest a type of relationship or social status between individuals or groups of people coming in contact with each other. While greeting customs are highly culture- and situation-specific and may change within a culture depending on social status and relationship, they exist in all known human cultures. Greetings can be expressed both audibly and physically, and often involve a combination of the two. This topic excludes military and ceremonial salutes but includes rituals other than gestures.

Greetings are often, but not always, used just prior to a conversation.

Some epochs and cultures have had very elaborate greeting rituals, e.g., greeting of a king.

Secret societies have clandestine greeting rituals that allow members to recognize common membership.

Written English

By convention, formal letters in English commence with the salutation "Dear" followed by the name or title of the recipient. If the name or title of the recipient is unknown, then it is conventional to write "Dear Sir," or "Dear Madam," or where the sex of the recipient is also unknown, "Dear Sir/Madam," or "Dear Sir or Madam" is used. In other forms of written communication (such as fax or email), or in informal messages the salutation is often absent or replaced with a personal variant.

Gestures

Waving

• Añjali Mudrā
• Bowing
• Cheek kissing
• Eskimo kissing
• Fist pound, in which two individuals touch fists
• High-five
• Pressing noses
• Handshake
• Hand-kissing
• Hat raising or tipping
• Hug
• Kowtow
• Namaste
• Roman salute
• Tehniyat
• Waving, the gesture of moving one's hand back and forth
• Wai

Voicemail greetings

Voicemail greetings are pre-recorded messages that are automatically played to callers, when the voicemail system answers the call. Some voicemail systems allow for different greetings to be played to different callers.

See also

• Etiquette
• Manners
• Parting phrase
• Hare Krishna
• Paschal greeting
• Salutation
• Salute
• Voicemail
• Tashi Delek
• List of greetings

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Greetings

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