Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 34, No. 163.
            Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London
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    [1]    From: Robert Delius Royar 
           Subject: Re: [Humanist] 34.162: communication (51)

    [2]    From: Manfred Thaller 
           Subject: Re: [Humanist] 34.162: communication (35)


--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Date: 2020-07-12 14:23:58+00:00
        From: Robert Delius Royar 
        Subject: Re: [Humanist] 34.162: communication

The [un]read text message

so much depends
upon

the  [un]read text
message

riddled with usage
errors

among the digitized
distractions

By the way, text messages existed years before the perpetual September
began, one example being IRC, another BBSes. The writer of this
seven-year-old cri de coeur avoids the nuance of the way communication
adapted and ignores the history of the epistolary genre as it can be traced
(and has been) through family history. I recommend also reading the replies
(such as the one from Hugh Cunningham).


On Sun, Jul 12, 2020 at 8:41 AM Willard McCarty <
willard.mccarty@mccarty.org.uk> wrote

>         Subject: intimate and fast
>
> In the London Review of Books, in her reflections on the change in our
> communicative habits, Rebecca Solnit recalls the days (until 1995, she
> says) when postal letters were common. Then the great change:
>
>  > Letters morphed into emails, and for a long time emails had all the
>  > depth and complexity of letters. They were a beautiful new form that
>  > spliced together the intimacy of what you might write from the heart
>  > with the speed of telegraphs. Then emails deteriorated into something
>  > more like text messages...
>
> This intimate and fast style began and remains Humanist's. My hope is
> that it survives us all, alongside the exchange of 'information'.
>
> Solnit's article, "In the Day of the Postman" (2013), may be found at
> (https://email.lrb.co.uk/t/d-l-mudnyk-kuudjyel-y/).
>
> Yours,
> WM


--
               Robert Delius Royar
 Caught in the net since 1985


--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Date: 2020-07-12 13:29:45+00:00
        From: Manfred Thaller 
        Subject: Re: [Humanist] 34.162: communication

Dear Willard,

Are you sure this is not one of those pasts which never have been?

If you get all too desperate about the style and elaborateness of
e-mails I would recommend to browse a bit through the correspondence of
Messrs. Marx & Engels, probably one of the more complete intensive
correspondences surviving. In my opinion they wrote each other e-mails,
occasionally thrice a day, little, if any, orthography, elliptic
references in three to four languages, all sorts of insider
abbreviations etc. etc. Damn the style, full speed ahead!

Well written and composed letters are a joy. But are they always
conducive to understanding? If you answer a small bit by a focused
comment, can that not be as enlightening as selecting three points from
a letter, which have been of secondary importance to the author and
composing another essay answering these three?

And as to the link you shared with us:
> That bygone time had rhythm, and it had room for you to do one thing
> at a time;
Until 1995 I must have been living on another planet. The one I lived on
was different from today. Different it was, tranquil it wasn't.

Kind regards,
Manfred



--
Prof. em. Dr. Manfred Thaller
Zuletzt Universität zu Köln /
Formerly University at Cologne




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