Breakdown

I have been concerned by the lack of structure in a great deal of the email correspondence I read. Retired now, but when I was in business we would agonize over the selection of letterhead paper, logos and address placement. We even had a policy to pass all letters through our most literate partner who checked spelling and punctuation. Then the letters would be entirely retyped and checked again before mailing. I once sent a letter that was not checked only to have it returned by the recipient, marked-up for spelling & punctuation. In more recent years when I had a computer, I wrote a proposal to a library board and learned some time later that it was rejected because I misspelled something. This kind of thing really mattered to people. It still matters thankfully in our newspapers & magazines. I do not think I am just being nostalgic. Responding to correspondence with misspelled words, void of punctuation and structure was not acceptable then and not acceptable now. Maybe we should start marking-up correspondence and rejecting. It sure cured me. We should all too stop responding with three word sentences and using expressions like “U got it”, “whatever”, “my bad”, “Dude”, “just saying” and “I could care less” when people mean I couldn’t care less. My Daughter suggests that maybe people are too busy and are perhaps typing with their thumbs. Well, “too busy” is shorthand for I do not care, I am not interested and typing with thumbs needs to be substituted with sitting down and writing out at least a short meaningful sentence, if for no other reason than respect. John Greenleaf Whittier wrote “The continuity of life is never broken”. I would modify in this case to The continuity of life should never be broken. Tom Stokes, Architect 2134 The Bluffs Toledo, Ohio 43615 419-367-3326 tomstokes@tcstokesaia.com