Peeves

The Biased Observer^©

Pet Peeves

On Email

Eventually I had to get around to the topic of email. Today is as good a day as any that still remain available to me. Email is a great thing. While I might compose, address, stamp, and mail a personal letter about once every ten years; I will send the same person a dozen email messages in a single day without a second thought. The last part of that is especially true--without a second thought--and does not necessarily speak of overcoming reservations. Personal email is often composed of on the spot thoughts not developed to maturity and seldom given the focus of effort of hard copy correspondence. The same is not really true of business email, but even there the formalized thought process that is the concomitant of good writing is watered down considerably. The conventions of grammar and syntax have all but conceded defeat to e-speak, an online language that would even surprise George Orwell. I am fairly fluent in e-speak, but like other bilingual individuals find it difficult not to blend elements of my two languages. Further, it is a daily fight to maintain the well structured rules that govern the traditional use of my native tongue while maintaining the instant gratification pace that e-speak requires. In short, the more I use email, the greater the atrophy of my traditional writing skills.

I still think email is a pretty good thing. You can choose to read it when you're ready or even ignore it all together. I really appreciated the ability to send an email to Japan before I went home for the evening and know that the reply I needed would be in my inbox the following morning. Instead of fighting the time zones to find a mutual time to meet on the telephone, email allowed me to maximize the benefit of the difference in time zones.

I have a love-hate relationship with the plethora of jokes, anecdotes, and devotions that circulate via this electronic medium. I love being able to read them and save them if desired. I hate having an inbox full of these messages normally titled fw:fw:fw:fw:fw: and perhaps a word or two from the original title when I'm looking for a critical reply to an email I had sent some time earlier. What I really detest is the plea at the end of one of these messages to send it to ten other people immediately if you believe in something or so I won't have bad luck. While the original message may have been a good one, I can't stand this simultaneous insult to its author and reader. We intuitively share that which is well written, funny, or believe to have some redeeming value. These endnote qualifiers detract from the message. I'm not superstitious and will not subsidize superstition by forwarding these messages with the qualifier attached.

I have more to say on the subject of electronic mail, spam, attachments, and copyright infringement, but they will have to wait for another day. I have to check my inbox.

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Tom Spence