Our contacts will be as follows

[Xinfu]

Please be informed that the Registration and Examinations Section (RES) will be relocated from Sui Lo Building to Kanagawa Academic Park with effect from 20 May 2015. Our contacts will be as follows:



Is it correct to use the plural of contact to mean contact information?

[Rusty]

'Contact information' is not equivalent to 'contact' or 'contacts'. The last two refer to people, not the information.

Please be advised that the Registration and Examinations Section (RES) will be relocated from the Sui Lo building to Kanagawa Academic Park, effective 20 May 2015. Contact information is/will be available at:

[Xinfu]

'Contact information' is not equivalent to 'contact' or 'contacts'. The last two refer to people, not the information.

Thank you.

1. Do you think 'please be informed' is simply wrong in this situation? I would have thought 'informed' and 'advised' were the same, the latter being old-fashioned.

2. Very often in newspapers we find things like

-The government has cut interest rates with effect from the beginning of next month.

In the situation we are discussing, what's the difference between 'with effect from' and 'effective'?

[Rusty]

'Please be advised' is used MUCH more than the latter 'informed', and I find a difference between the two adjectives. The primary meaning of 'advised' is counsel, admonish or caution. This meaning is not shared with 'informed', whose meanings are also ascribed to 'advised'. Perhaps you didn't mean to convey the idea of admonishing or warning, though, so 'informed' would be the better adjective to use (although 'advised' also has the same meanings as 'informed', in addition to the ones mentioned).

'With effect from' sounds odd to me, but that's probably because it's chiefly British English. We prefer 'effective' in American English. Both phrases mean the same thing, so all you need to remember is which side of the pond you're on.