071703 black & red cross
Thursday, July 17, 2003
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I suppose the maxim really is true: if you can't say something nice, say nothing at all.
Clarification time, this is excerpted from an email I wrote to a friend to whom my criticisms would absolutely never apply about why I posted yesterday what I did:
A couple of posts this past week are based on some
general observations... (of) how quite a few people
don't understand writing, the purpose of writing,
what's conveyed through writing and what's valuable
about it.
In particular, I'm reacting to two... (who) use
email in such a cavalier way that I can't tell much at
all about their intentions, tone, understanding,
making me as a respondent confused and cautious... not young people, educated, and should
really know better... it
was disturbing... and made me
think about how genuine these people are, or what
their intentions are. And I think the instantaneity
and impersonal feel of email for some people makes
them forget there is another person on the other side.
Writing conventions, and care in expresssing thought,
seem to be losing value in a broad cultural sense... a
real shame because I think it is something extremely
valuable. What if everyone began dropping the use of
simple manners? Oh, wait, that's already happening,
isn't it? But so many people who should know better
are dropping even the simplest conventions like it's
too much work. Is is that hard to begin an email with
Hi or Dear? How about using that shift key, giving me
a period or question mark so I know what you mean?
These are things that help us talk to each other,
recieve some implied understandings, set a context.
I'm not looking for a perfectly proofread email with
no spelling mistakes and proper use of the dreaded
semi-colon, but come one. It just amazes me how
intellectually thoughtless some people appear to be
just because they don't make the effort.
Connected to this, here's something Raymond referred me to: My obligtation to you...
I feel a personal obligation to the people who read this site and to the world at large not to...
I feel a very different kind of obligation to the friends that I've made online and the community that has grown up around this site...
...I feel absolutely no obligation whatsoever to write to entertain the people who read this site...
Say...
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