The power of the written word

This time I'm thinking about substitution of technology - how different some basic processes are now to "when I were a lad".  What do I mean by substitution of technology?  We're talking here about a customer adopting one product over another due to its technological superiority.

We've seen this effect countless time in consumer technology products - CDs superseding LPs and cassettes, Blu-ray (hoping to) supercede DVDs, etc, etc.

What I want to look at today is something that is so far removed from yesteryear that it's almost unrecognisable.  Unlike the media examples I quoted above this is an essential skill that we all need to.  The technology for achieving it has changed but the basic skill remains the same - I'm talking written communication.

I'm not referring here to commercial or business communication.  What I'm talking about is how would I use the written word to keep in touch with, say,  cousins in Scotland or a German pen pal (remember those?).

Let me step back in history to another life to describe how this was done in my youth.

A blast from the past, Parker Quink

I had the misfortune to spend my teenage years in a rather grim English boarding school.  Every week we had to write two letters, under supervision of a sadistic prefect.  These letters could be to anyone but it was expected that if you had parents, one of those letters would be addressed to them to tell them what a spiffing time you were having.  Letters were to be no less than 2 sheets of writing paper (both sides to be used) and all writing was to be neat, in ink (no biros) and grammatically sound.  If you made a mistake there was this wonderful new invention called 'Tippex' to rectify the error.  It didn't matter what you had to say or how little worth repeating had actually happened since last you wrote, 4 sides of paper for each letter, no excuses.  There was an hour set aside for this task so there was plenty of time to read, check and correct whatever scintillating news you managed to dream up.

Schooldays letter-writing nightmares

Fast forward to now and ask, would anyone use such a victorian approach to communicating with loved ones?  Most likely you would actually call them by phone, mobile phone or you might Skype them for both audio and video exchange of news.

Even if you do still write long hand to friends, you would most likely use email to make this happen.


Think about the advantages that the modern writer has over the reluctant schoolboy from yesteryear . . .

Post box

• I can type considerably faster than I can write
• Legibility is never an issue so long as I don't choose a weird font
• Formality has largely disappeared so the tone of the message is likely to be far more fun and less likely to send the recipient to sleep
• If I am as precious about grammar and spelling as my masters were, well hey, there's an excellent grammar and spelling checker built in to the email client (yes, I know that's cheating but I haven't bought a new dictionary for 15 years)
• I can write the same basic message once, then clone it with minimal change for as many recipients as I choose
• Email has much greater immediacy than pen and paper - tell them what's going on today, not what happened weeks ago
• Chances are that there's a photo, news story or video that's relevant to include in the email.  Send out a link to provide multimedia support for your words
• Stamps are getting expensive, and good writing paper ain't cheap either.  Eliminate these by sending an email for virtually no cost at all
• Use all that time you saved from not writing a formal letter to do something fun.

Maybe the biggest loser here is your dog, who no longer gets his morning walk to the post box, since you only use the 'snail mail' system once in a blue moon.

Fountain pen nib    

Personal communication through the written word has changed so dramatically over the last 15 or so years that it's virtually unrecognisable from what I remember.  The convenience of email, instant messaging, blogging and text messaging leaves traditional methods for dust.  Electronic mail surpassed letter writing many moons ago for most people living in a modern world.  The email technology itself is now somewhat long in the tooth but is still serving us very well indeed.

I don't miss writing long hand, especially under the nonsense rules of my schooldays.  There is though one thing I do miss - I loved to write with my Parker fountain pen.  I wonder if there's a font that replicates the look of pen strokes made with blue-black Quink?