Informal and Formal Words and Phrases

Imagine that you are writing to a friend to tell them about an incident at your local train station. Your letter should be informal and might say:

“The guy who sold me my ticket was really nasty”.

Now imagine that you are writing a letter of complaint to the train company. Your letter should be formal so it would be better to say:

“The man who sold me my ticket was very unfriendly”.

Can you see the difference?

We used the words guy and really nasty in the informal letter and replaced them with man and very unfriendly in the formal letter.

We do this because some words and phrases are more informal and relaxed than others and should not be used in a formal letter.

Comprehension Exercise