Well, I write this from the library. I think the problem with our computer at home is with our internet provider, but I'm not sure. This produces an insecure feeling since it also means we have no phone service. This is the time when having a fancy schmancy internet-based phone plan stinks.
So we're back to the most primitive of communication methods (apart from coming to the library, or using the internet or the phone at work, or until the internet provider gets things up and running, if that's the issue), namely snail mail. In fact lately I've been thinking a fair bit about letter writing and how, up until about 20 years ago, it ruled when it came to long distance communication. While you could use the phone before then, it was so expensive when calling long distance that you tended to write a letter instead.
(Okay: here's the definite disadvantage of doing e-mail in the library. A child at the terminal next to me is playing some sort of flaming-destruction video game...Ah, sweet relief. The boy's father got a head set from the information desk and plugged the boy in. Silence, except for the usual muttering and clicking in these sorts of environments, is golden...)
Anyhow, as I was saying about letters, I was put in mind about this topic from having read two 18th century biographies recently, both of which quoted copiously from personal letters. People then used to take great care writing to just one person. Grammar was good, ideas were clear, etc., or as good and clear as people could make them. Personal letters were a kind of gift, sent to the other party. Getting one was an event.
Now, either on blogs like this or Facebook, or other media I understand even less (Twitter?) we write for anonymous parties (or for no one at all perhaps), putting thoughts into cyberspace quite impersonally. E-mails to individuals are the closest to old-fashioned letters, but people today often write carelessly, sloppily, sometimes incomprehensibly. After all it's only for one person. I'll save my best stuff for the wide world.
This at least is my theory. Those of us from yesteryear still do tend to take care as we write our private e-mail messages, of course. Old habits die hard. But I do find now a nagging thought that had not existed before 20 years ago, namely, I need to save my best stuff for the stage, as it were. My 15 minutes of fame awaits me...
So we're back to the most primitive of communication methods (apart from coming to the library, or using the internet or the phone at work, or until the internet provider gets things up and running, if that's the issue), namely snail mail. In fact lately I've been thinking a fair bit about letter writing and how, up until about 20 years ago, it ruled when it came to long distance communication. While you could use the phone before then, it was so expensive when calling long distance that you tended to write a letter instead.
(Okay: here's the definite disadvantage of doing e-mail in the library. A child at the terminal next to me is playing some sort of flaming-destruction video game...Ah, sweet relief. The boy's father got a head set from the information desk and plugged the boy in. Silence, except for the usual muttering and clicking in these sorts of environments, is golden...)
Anyhow, as I was saying about letters, I was put in mind about this topic from having read two 18th century biographies recently, both of which quoted copiously from personal letters. People then used to take great care writing to just one person. Grammar was good, ideas were clear, etc., or as good and clear as people could make them. Personal letters were a kind of gift, sent to the other party. Getting one was an event.
Now, either on blogs like this or Facebook, or other media I understand even less (Twitter?) we write for anonymous parties (or for no one at all perhaps), putting thoughts into cyberspace quite impersonally. E-mails to individuals are the closest to old-fashioned letters, but people today often write carelessly, sloppily, sometimes incomprehensibly. After all it's only for one person. I'll save my best stuff for the wide world.
This at least is my theory. Those of us from yesteryear still do tend to take care as we write our private e-mail messages, of course. Old habits die hard. But I do find now a nagging thought that had not existed before 20 years ago, namely, I need to save my best stuff for the stage, as it were. My 15 minutes of fame awaits me...
posted by Ted | 2:41 PM
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