The lost art of written correspondence

[ptrthgr8]

I hate handwriting. Never liked it as a kid and was immensely pleased once we moved into the digital age. Of course now my handwriting (such as it is) can really only be described as scribbles... but as long as my wonderful wifey can understand my scrawling then I suppose it's sufficient.

I also hate reading books. I used to really enjoy reading, but college absolutely ruined it for me. I really got interested in Finnish history about 10 years ago and picked up a copy of the Kalevala, but actually trying to read it killed me inside. Not that it was particularly difficult to read (I've read Johnny Got His Gun several times - if you can handle Dalton Trumbo's writing style you can handle anything), but just sitting there reading and flipping through the pages became painfully boring. I ended up throwing one of the Lord of the Rings movies into the DVD player - everyone knows that Tolkien was influenced by the Kalevala, so it worked out nicely.

But I absolutely loathe bad grammar, poor sentence structure, and shitty spelling. Pobody is nerfect and everyone makes mistakes from time to time, but there's a massive difference between the occasional mistake that gets past someone versus the butchering of one's native language. In fact, just today I told HR they could pound sand after sending us an applicant whose resume looked like it was written by an 8 year-old. (No offense to 8 year-olds.) Nope, nope, nope. Declined for interview on the grounds that his resume made me want to punch him in the throat. And I don't even know the fellow!

I hate handwriting and book reading. But I still appreciate the language enough to try to get it right.

Cheers,

~ Greg ~

[Drguano]

Gotten any postcards recently? I am off to London in a couple of weeks so watch the post.

[Fuzz]

I feel like writing a letter with the fountain pen I won a few years back from our esteemed hosts.

[Jeremy Festa]

I feel like writing a letter with the fountain pen I won a few years back from our esteemed hosts.

All your posts should be hand written, scanned, and posted for our reading pleasure.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[cigcars]

Yeah. You're all very right. Punctuation, grammar and spelling are indeed abysmal nowadays. Just goes to show what school systems are about these days. My two cousins are bigwigs in the Kentucky and Georgia school systems. They've both noted that the better schools concentrate on teaching leadership. The rest of the regular schools are preparing students for the assembly line.

But on a lighter note, during college graduation days I found and bought a T-shirt that I fell in love with. It was in handwriting that appeared to have motor control problems, and said the following: "Sicks munce ago I coodn't even spel grajuwat - and now I ARE one!"

[Maplepie]

keep in mind that in the ancient days, stone was useful for keeping records because papyrus was decently expensive and sometimes delicate. Most people would just use memory for this reason.

nowadays, it's just so cheap to transfer documents over by computers and so easy. it's also much better to type things as it's more legible and easier to correct - even if you're typing on your iPhone or Blackberry (for Enigma )

On top of that, most education institutions start to ban submissions that are handwritten for final assignments. no one ever scribes anymore except for in class evaluations. this is relatively new and will continue to add onto these things.

exams on computers will essentially eliminate all penmanship when it comes in 1-2 decades as children will start to have little to know experience printing - let alone handwriting

[PapaDisco]

I find that it is a very different intellectual experience handwriting a note (which at best one can do at 25-30 WPM) and typing one (which can be done at up to 100 WPM, nearly as fast as thought). Like many here, I prefer to handwrite anything personal, or that I would like emphasized; and do it with a fountain pen on decent paper.

The keyboard has its place too of course, particularly for online writing and most business correspondence, but without the experience of thinking through a hand written letter, most students of today can't organize their thoughts coherently. It's as if they are acting on 'internet time' and unable to pause and think critically of where their message is going or how it's organized.

Hand writing is not only beautiful, it also trains the mind to think about the structure and content of one's message; whether by hand or typeset.

[1LegLance]

_{The fault is with ball point pens...}

_{No seriously.}

_{Before the ball point became cheap & popular we all had to use fountain pens. And that mean having a light touch as you don't need any pressure to get ink to flow. Matter of fact the lighter you hold the pen and the more you use "big arm" movements vs finger writting the better off you are.}

_{With a ball point (and to some degree a roller/gell) you need to grip a bit more and press. Thus finger writting and cramps.}

_{My everyday carry pen is a Namiki Vanishing Point which is a clickable fountain pen. It isn't an expensive pen really when I think about all the years I have carried it I have a Richard Binder Itali-fine nib that gives me a great line variation and yet can be flipped over and write very finely if needed.}

_{I also watch for fountain pens at garage sales and thrift stores. Recently I got an Esterbrook J which has a very fine nib and for $1 USB was a steal.}

_{If you get cramps from writing spend a little time on fountainpennetwork.com and with an inexpensive pen and practice you will be living large and writing well.}

[Fuzz]

keep in mind that in the ancient days, stone was useful for keeping records because papyrus was decently expensive and sometimes delicate. Most people would just use memory for this reason.

nowadays, it's just so cheap to transfer documents over by computers and so easy. it's also much better to type things as it's more legible and easier to correct - even if you're typing on your iPhone or Blackberry (for Enigma )

On top of that, most education institutions start to ban submissions that are handwritten for final assignments. no one ever scribes anymore except for in class evaluations. this is relatively new and will continue to add onto these things.

exams on computers will essentially eliminate all penmanship when it comes in 1-2 decades as children will start to have little to know experience printing - let alone handwriting

All well and good, if the student in question has any grasp of punctuation and grammar. Too often I've proof-read my co-worker's reports and found glaringly obvious punctuation and grammatical errors. The younger the co-worker, the worse it got. Now I'm not saying older people were perfectly correct either, but the rate of error was far higher with the younger staff.

And it really irks me when internet slang or netspeak are used in corporate emails. Yes, emails are for quick communication, but netspeak should never be used in a corporate environment. Very unprofessional.

[CaptainQuintero]

Anyone seen the film Idiocracy?

[Fuzz]

Anyone seen the film Idiocracy?

Not sure....

[CaptainQuintero]

Not sure, 'bating

[HarveyBoulevard]

Anyone seen the film Idiocracy?

Such a great movie. Sad to say it seems very possible these days. Although, there can't really be 8000 people named 'Upgrade'.

[Charltonc]

I am 31 years old and do not have a smart phone. I am told that I am weird because I do not check my facebook status every two seconds on my phone. Face to face contact, letters, and talking are a lost art. I still journal every single day and it is glorious to see patterns that we go through as human beings. Unfortunately, I have moved my journaling to the computer as I can type faster than write and my handwriting is horrific. I boycotted text messages until 2011, but I fell in because I wanted to get laid. This weekend, I think am I going to bring back the old journal and slow down and write. Great topic Rob!

[Pedro2486]

I am 31 years old and do not have a smart phone. I am told that I am weird because I do not check my facebook status every two seconds on my phone. Face to face contact, letters, and talking are a lost art. I still journal every single day and it is glorious to see patterns that we go through as human beings. Unfortunately, I have moved my journaling to the computer as I can type faster than write and my handwriting is horrific. I boycotted text messages until 2011, but I fell in because I wanted to get laid. This weekend, I think am I going to bring back the old journal and slow down and write. Great topic Rob!

I hear you bro. I've only had a Facebook for a year or so and that's only to catch up with chicks .

I'm not a fan of SMS either. Fine for short notes but if you want to have a conversation with me bloody call. The whole communicating buy text has stripped all nuance from language. Not to mention spelling, I find myself loosing the ability to spell if I use electronics due to the autocorrect and I think that's a major factor of why spelling and grammar are becoming so poor.

I still do all my design work on paper with ink rather than cad etc. I just can't flow ideas properly through a mouse and keyboard

[forgop]

My mom was an 8th grade English teacher. We had to do sentence diagrams that seemed to take forever. You can get a bachelor's degree and even a master's degree without ever having to learn what we used to do in junior high school. It's just a continuous trend of dumbing down to the lowest common denominator to make sure the standards allows anyone to get through anymore.

[Maplepie]

I boycotted text messages until 2011, but I fell in because I wanted to get laid.

Huh...

When i used to get numbers, i never texted - always called.

Apparently women found it weird but good weird. Mind you, getting laid wasn't my first priority so........

[champ]

Yes i write letters and send them to fishing friends.Usually the ones that i dont see very often.There is always a reply,even if we see each other in between .A letter arrives in due course and is a delight to have dropping through the letterbox.