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From: hxe@rayssd.UUCP (Heather Emanuel)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Re: The "Reality"/typing vs handwriting
Message-ID: <1600@rayssd.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 9-Dec-85 13:11:11 EST
Article-I.D.: rayssd.1600
Posted: Mon Dec  9 13:11:11 1985
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Sender: hxe@rayssd.UUCP (Heather Emanuel @ Raytheon Co., Portsmouth RI)
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I think we're arguing two different issues here.  (Why do my
postings to this group always seem to begin that way?)

Some people are debating the desirability of actual-letters-on-paper
versus electronic mail, and some people are debating the relative
merits of handwritten versus typed letters.

I don't know anyone who would prefer electronic mail over paper mail
except for the instant-response feature (and the fact that you can
kill valuable work time reading and replying, but that's another
matter), so we'll drop that one.

So once we've established that everyone loves to hold that letter in
their hands and cherish the look of the postmark and smell the
perfume that the letter carrier was wearing the day she/he delivered
it (like how I blithely assume that all ten thousand people on the
net are in agreement here?), we get to the handwritten versus
typewritten debate.

I vote for type.  My joy is in getting the news from my friends, not
analyzing their handwriting.  Most of my friends are very witty and
poetic letter writers.  I want to be able to enjoy what they're
saying to me without struggling to interpret individual words.  I
don't like to stop in mid-thought, figure out whether that's an "o"
or an "a", figure out the word, and then start over so I can read a
complete sentence.  My friends' letters to me are personalized
enough -- notes in the margin, scrawled postscripts on the envelope,
etc.  I don't need `proof' that the letter is from them and not a
clever forgery.

As far as writing letters goes, I get very involved in letters that
I write, and I find my hand can't keep up with my thoughts unless
I'm typing.  I especially love electronic editing, because I can go
back later and fix all the mistakes; that way my writing is almost
stream-of-consciousness in its spontaneity but not too far out into
left field as to be unintelligible.  And I write long letters, so
typing prevents those nasty hand cramps, too.  One more bonus of
computer-generated letters: my best friend and I have developed a
unique vocabulary over the years, none of which is in the on-line
dictionary.  So when I run "spell" on the letters I get a great list
of the interesting words in the letter.  I usually include them at
the end under the heading "Highlights Of This Letter."

In the interest of fairness, I'll present the opposite point of
view.  My best friend, much as she likes my letters, prefers a
handwritten one once in a while just to prove I'm still human, and
she sends me typewritten letters only sporadically because she
prefers to write her letters by hand but she knows I prefer typed
letters.  Now there's another definition of friendship...
-- 
--Heather Emanuel {allegra, decvax!brunix, linus, raybed2} rayssd!hxe
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   I don't think my company *has* an opinion, so the ones in this
                  article are obviously my own.
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"Ain't life a brook...
 Sometimes I feel just like a polished stone"  -Ferron