What a pointless task, yet one that I find very rewarding. Not only at work, but at home as well. Getting that empty Inbox, or only having read emails in it that I will take care of later. The work email is worse. I get too many in that account, and it fills up quickly.
But the personal one really isn’t that personal.
I used to communicate with friends and family through email, but looking through my personal Inbox, I see that I really haven’t used email for catching up with friends in years. There are some family emails, but that clearly is losing its power.
It is a text messaging word now.
This really isn’t news to anyone under the age of 40.
For me it is like I just received confirmation again that the way people communicate has changed once again. There were physical letters, then the phone, then email, and now text messaging. (Skype, Facetime and video messaging in my mind really doesn’t have the same impact.) I don’t think this really has an impact on society, it’s just an observation.
I say no impact because I think that humans have been trying to make communication between each other as direct and casual as possible. Formal language is a sham, and I think it was used to create a line of educated and uneducated. There are no rules in communication as long as the listener was able to clearly understand the direction and intent.
I would have this debate with people in college all the time; about what were the rules to the English language. They held there were rules, and my position was always, the language never had rules, and what we perceive that the rules are today, will change in 100 years.
Don’t believe me, then look at the letters written 100 years ago. Not letters from well educated world leaders, but the letters of the people who lived, and worked in your town. That language and today’s language are noticeable different, but it still communicates intent to our modern ears.
Language evolves just like everything else.
There are no rules.
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