What’s the origin of this closing?
WAG, variations on
At your service,
Your most obedient servant,
Your humble servant,
etc
Can’t say if these were aristocratic courtesies or commercial invitations.
In English, such a closing goes back to at least the 17th century. Here is an example from 1665.
Hang on, are we talking about people signing:
“Yours sincerly, John Smith”,
“Yours faithfully, John Smith”, etc.,
or are we talking about people actually signing:
“Yours etc., John Smith”?
If the latter, I think it started relatively recently as a joke, or as a joke propagated in error.
When dictating a letter to a secretary, the dictator signifies the end of the letter to the secretary by saying “yours” or “yours etc.” or “yours and so on”, meaning that the secrtary should finish off the letter with whatever the standard form is, e.g.
"Yours faithfully,
John Smith,
Executive Director
5 December 2003"
For what it’s worth, I’ve seen “yours, etc.” many times in legal forms. Here’s an example I found:
I have no idea where the phrase comes from (and I would like to know too).
My WAG is that it originates in people who don’t want to choose among “Sincerely,” “Truly,” “Affectionately,” etc. In the modern world, all these adverbs seem slightly inappropriate in formal situations. I just close with “Yours,” and my name. According to formal etiquette guides, this is incorrect usage, but, frankly, I don’t care. I don’t want to be bothered with coming up with an appropriate adverb for what is merely a formality anyway.
Just be thankful you’re not writing in French, where the custom (or so my French teacher told me) is to write:
Je vous prie de croire, Monsieur, à l’assurance de mes salutations distinguées
Or roughly, “I beg you to have faith, Sir, in the undertaking of my distinguished greetings.”
Ass-licky or what?