Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Do You Gabble?

Today, I received this via email in a list of items predicted to soon become extinct:

9. Hand-Written Letters. In 2006, the Radicati Group estimated that, worldwide, 183 billion e-mails were sent each day. Two million each second. By November of 2007, an estimated 3.3 billion Earthlings owned cell phones, and 80% of the world's population had access to cell phone coverage. In 2004, half-a-trillion text messages were sent, and the number has no doubt increased exponentially since then. So where amongst this gorge of gabble is there room for the elegant, polite hand-written letter?

As a writer, this saddens me, even as I guiltily tuck away my oft-buzzing cell phone. . . and that doesn't even begin to address the emails and MySpace/Facebook messages I receive. Don't get me wrong -- I'm not about to give those glorious modern conveniences, either. But like a lot of writers I know, I also have a long-time love of beautiful pens, inks in beautiful colors, and special papers that allow pen and hand to glide across it like glass. Writing letters was once an excuse for possessing such luxuries of the handwritten word. Will it be long before these things fall by the wayside as well? Should I be glomming on to all the Waterman pens and Clairefontaine stationary I can find?

I've heard rumors that even cursive writing is to fall by the wayside. Quelle horreur! How many of us {especially young girls} worked to develop a style of script that was uniquely our own, oh-so-long-ago?

What about you? Do you still write letters? To anyone? Ever? Do you, too, mourn the loss of these things, or am I alone in my quirks?

As for me, journaling by hand will still require the special papers, pens, and ink. Thank goodness. If not for that, I promise you I would have had the most beautiful grocery lists in Indiana. :-)

Love to all on a very blustery Midwestern spring {Yes!} day,


Mad {madly!}

4 comments:

Vickie said...

I write letters, thank you notes, cards. I love hand-writing, but am addicted to emails. I don't talk on the phone overly much as I am not quick on my feet speaker. I do well, at least better, when I have the time to form my words.
I love finding the perfect pen, how it feels in my hand and how the ink flows smoothly.
I journal books I read, but not so much my thoughts. I don't like the idea of someone (my 6 year old daughter) one day finding them....eek!

lorhen82 said...

You're not alone. It saddens me to think of how much we've gotten away from hand-written letters. Look back at how beautiful EVERYONE'S handwriting used to be. I keep telling myself that I'll start writing letters again, but I never seem to get to it. That's something that I want to change this year. ~Lori

Charlotte Graves, Widow said...

I have to agree with you. However, and unfortunately, looking over the past few hundred years many things have gone by the wayside and we are left with those who appreciate and painstakingly attempt to keep the memories of our culture and memories alive for as long as they can. Gone are the days of the private eye in front of his typewriter or the raw sounds of an LP that ads character and more natural sounds than those dubbed by machines today so anyone can be a singing sensation, so long as they don't have to perform live! But I do hope, my self included, that we continue to write and leave something warm and personal for those who we will eventually leave behind. I cannot imagine someone's last hearfelt message being left in a text or typed out on a computer. I've even heard that texting abbreviations will eventually hurt the English langauage and possibly become the way of future communications. We've already lost so much class that the language originally possessed. Kudos to all who still like the old fashion pen and ink method of doing things. Now, back to the books I go!

Warm wishes and high praise for your wonderful stories!

Cherrie

barbara said...

Madelyn - I am a producer and I am inquiring about the availabilty of film and tv rights to your books - do you have an agent who represents them or can you email me at blieberman@rgpinc.com - thanks - barbara