Email Annoyances
Over the past dozen or so years, since I’ve been using email, I’ve noticed an alarming decline in the quality of written correspondence. It seems that people have adopted the notion that just because email is delivered quickly, it has to be generated just as quickly. Why is that?
I mean, why do so many people dispense with salutations, punctuation and capitalisation when creating electronic correspondence?
What I find quite confusing is that many of these same people will still take appropriate care when writing a letter that will be printed out and then sent via the analogue postal system. Ironically, electronic mail doesn’t use physical resources (like paper); therefore, it is actually better suited to longer and more carefully crafted content.
As far as I am concerned, written communication has not changed, and nor should it just because its delivery method has changed.
I understand that chat-rooms and phone texting necessitates a certain ugly style, for efficiency, but, although this style has its place, it is definitely not suitable nor acceptable for email.
Grammar, spelling and punctuation are all part of making sure that your message is clear. As soon as one or more of these is omitted, the message becomes ambiguous or misleading. In most cases it is simply insulting to the recipient.
If you have something to say, then respect your recipients by taking just a few more moments to write it correctly. I’m sure they would appreciate it and it will avoid potential misunderstandings and will definitely save you (and your recipients) time in the long run.
Correct Terminology
While we're on the subject of email; it has been decided by the Grammarian Society of GoMaW (Grumpy old Men and Women) that the common terminology associated with electronic mail is incorrect.
Firstly, the dictionary meanings of "mail":
–noun
1. letters, packages, etc., that are sent or delivered by means of the postal system.
2. a collection of such letters, packages, etc., as sent or delivered.
Now for the meaning of "letter":
–noun
1. a written or printed communication addressed to a person or organisation and usually transmitted by mail.
Therefore, we send "letters" and packages via the mail or postal system. We then receive them, as "mail", in our mailbox. In the analogue world of physical letters and packages we never add an "s" to the end of the word mail (as in "mails") because the word is already plural and means "a collection of such letters, packages, etc."
For example, it is grammatically incorrect to say that we check our mailbox for "mails". The same goes for using "mail" in thesingular as in "I received just onemail today".
As a result, we need to ask, why do we use the ugly and obviously incorrect grammar when an "e" is placed in front of the word "mail"?
The following sentences are commonly accepted but grammatically incorrect: "I received just one email from you" or, conversely, "Wow, I received a lot of emails today". They just don’t make sense when proper grammar is applied.
So, it is proposed and strongly suggested that we use the word"eletter" for the correspondence delivered by the email (or epostal) system. And if we really want to get pedantic; for any eletter containing an attachment, we should use the term "eparcel" or "epackage".
If this makes sense to you, and it should, please promoteit to others.
I thank you in advance for your kind attention and efforts.