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Poll: Do you still send letters in this age of email and texting?

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  1. Member yoda313's Avatar
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    So do you still put pen to paper and send letters? Is the art of writing already lost to the masses? Or do blogs take the place of letters in the 21st century now?

    THoughts?
    Donatello - The Shredder? Michelangelo - Maybe all that hardware is for making coleslaw?
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  2. Banned
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    According to my personal experience,
    the whole "sign-seal-deliver" thing is not worth the effort anymore.
    Since 1978, I've been seeing the world get filled with more and more
    "functional illiterates" which cannot focus on any text longer than one page.
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  3. Sorry, but e-mail just says I don't care enough about you to sit down and write.

    Having seen many people send off e-mails in the heat of the moment that they wish they could recall later. No thanks. A letter, you write it, address it then still have time to reconsider before mailing it.

    Same problem with forums. I've done it myself. If I had time to sit back and rethink or rephrase it would be different content.
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  4. Member Conquest10's Avatar
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    I don't think I have ever written a letter in my life. The only time I send mail is for stuff like bills and my taxes.
    His name was MackemX

    What kind of a man are you? The guy is unconscious in a coma and you don't have the guts to kiss his girlfriend?
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  5. ...C O P Y L E F T JohnnyBob's Avatar
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    Not very often but, yes, I do still sit down and write a personal letter to someone. It's probably a printed out letter from my word processor. Handwritten letters or notes are indeed very rare now, but sometimes find their way into greeting cards.
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  6. The last time I wrote a letter was in 92/93 I think.but now when I call overseas I use skype out for $0.02 a min or IM
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  7. It does, sadly, seem like everything is turning into emails, text messaging, or instant messages these days. I think the world has grown a bit dull as a result. We now live in a world with an I-want-it-now-and-I-want-it-instantly mentality.

    The world of email, text messaging, and instant messages is not only making snail mail a thing that will seem bizarre to my grandchildren but even calling someone on the phone is dying off. Of course, I'd have to have a child first to end up with grandchild which won't happen anytime soon. Even with nearly everyone having a cellphone including 8 yr old kids, I see everyone around me using their cellphone to text message.

    So, what are the consequences and downsides of email, text messaging and instant messaging? People who are good writers with great use of grammar, etc, can turn into some of the hardest people to understand when they sit down at a computer or send a text message through their cellphone. Grammar goes out the window as does spelling, punctuation, and correct capitalization along with other things. Now, I'm not teacher and I don't expect every person to write perfectly. I know I make mistakes when I am writing but the depersonalized world we are living in is completely destroying the written language. People are in a hurry and just don't care.

    I still write letters to friends, family, and whoever else deserves it. I also send emails, text messages and instant messages. The situation varies depending on the need for writing. An actual handwritten letter is far more personal than some typed message on a computer screen. While both are merely words there is simply more to seeing a person's handwriting on a piece of paper with its own unique quality since no two people write exactly the same. In this drab, boring, monotonous, and mechanized world it's a nice change to see someone take the time to sit down and write a letter with their own hand and not just be lazy and type it.
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  8. Human j1d10t's Avatar
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    The only thing I use the mail for is bills, taxes, Christmas cards, packages, and the occasional form/letter (like a resume/application) if you can't fill it out/submit it on-line. The last time I sent a letter through the mail was in the early 90's. At the price of postage here in the US, it's just not worth it to send it through the mail when you can send the exact same thing through e-mail instantly for free, and if you send it via mail it will cost you and take about a week.

    The problem is that most people don't sit down and write "letters" at all. Either sent via mail or e-mail. They send 1 or 2 lines via e-mail of, "how are you doing? We're fine." And that is as in-depth as it gets, if you are lucky. Most of the time it's e-mail forwards. If you want to know how somebody is doing you have to pick up the phone and call them.

    Originally Posted by HemLok
    So, what are the consequences and downsides of email, text messaging and instant messaging? People who are good writers with great use of grammar, etc, can turn into some of the hardest people to understand when they sit down at a computer or send a text message through their cellphone. Grammar goes out the window as does spelling, punctuation, and correct capitalization along with other things. Now, I'm not teacher and I don't expect every person to write perfectly. I know I make mistakes when I am writing but the depersonalized world we are living in is completely destroying the written language. People are in a hurry and just don't care.
    Exactly! I couldn't have said it better myself.
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  9. Member bmwracer's Avatar
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    These polls always seem to lack the simple "Yes" or "No" answers...
    Frank Zappa: "People wouldn't know a good movie if it smacked 'em in the face."
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  10. Member yoda313's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by bmwracer
    These polls always seem to lack the simple "Yes" or "No" answers...
    Interesting.

    I usually get complaints of not having enough choices to pick from - or are you referring to the users responses?
    Donatello - The Shredder? Michelangelo - Maybe all that hardware is for making coleslaw?
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  11. I don't think I've written a letter since 1975. About the only thing I use the US Mail for these days is to pay bills and to send out invoices. All of my personal correspondence takes place on line either through email or MySpace messages.
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  12. Man of Steel freebird73717's Avatar
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    This poll got my attention. I don't send many letters, email's, or text messages. When I want to communicate with someone I just pick up the phone.

    My wife however will probably send close to 50 or 60 text messages a day. We had to upgrade to the unlimited text package just to cover her habbit. I don't say anything to her about her text's though because she doesn't say anything to me about the time I spend on forums!
    Donadagohvi (Cherokee for "Until we meet again")
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  13. Disgustipated TooLFooL's Avatar
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    people hate the increasing postage prices, but email is a major cause. i myself have virtually eliminated all of my paper mail, incoming and outgoing.
    I am just a worthless liar,
    I am just an imbecil
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  14. I'm a MEGA Super Moderator Baldrick's Avatar
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    Just christmas and birthdays cards.
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  15. Letters? Mostly this-is-what-we-did-this-year Christmas letters to distant friends, some quite elderly, who do not care for e-mail. Everybody else gets e-mails. I love the fast response and low cost. It's nice, too, getting photos sent in electronic form rather than as duplicate prints: view, save, and forget.

    I do endeavor to retain some handwriting skills by keeping a written journal - which has to be composed and written in sequence and cannot be edited!
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  16. My reply to this poll is - as they say - in the post.
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  17. Member
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    I was never a fan of writing anything. But I do admit that it seems sad that handwritten post letters are going the way of the Dodo. As much as I like receiving an e-mail (even just a forward of the latest nonsence going around) receiving a hand written letter is a pretty good feeling.

    My kids have just reached an age where they have school assignments for writing letters and sending letters to the troops. (politics be damned)

    My wife, on the otherhand, keeps the post office in business. Birthdays, holidays, burps and farts, my wife sends cards, photos and letters for all occasions!
    IS IT SUPPOSED TO SMOKE LIKE THAT?
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  18. Member Nitemare's Avatar
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    I never wrote letters. Even when e-mail was unheard of I never wrote letters. I send cards on holidays and birthdays and I usually scribble a personal note on the inside, but that's it.

    I don't e-mail much either but if I need to communicate, that's how I do it.

    The phone is troublesome. My teens are on it all day and when I am forced to use it, I have to wait until whoever I'm chatting with decides to stop talking before I can get off.... call waiting beeping in my ear every ten seconds (have I mentioned the teenagers?) ... it's frustrating as hell!!!!

    E-mail rocks... the phone is the devil... writing letters is okay but it's never been something that I've done. If it wasn't for e-mail. most people wouldn't even know that I'm still alive.
    Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
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  19. Member dadrab's Avatar
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    I hear you about the phone and teenagers. I'm there too.

    I ended up buying them cell phones...for better or worse.

    I do love to talk to friends on the phone, but, as someone has already mentioned, it's very special to get a handwritten letter in the mail.

    I still have some my grandmom wrote me in college - a pretty far piece back now.

    My one recent occurrence of letter writing was to son #1 on the occasion of his first state championship swim meet. He was there for four days and I wrote him a letter for each day and instructed my wife (who went with him) to give him that day's letter each morning.

    I also read with great interest the post bemoaning the fact that people don't write well anymore. That's God's truth and I hate it.

    I do communicate primarily through email these days, but I still try to write as well as I can when doing so. I refuse to fall into the traps that IM and texting seem to promote, which are silly abbreviations and shitty grammar because it's too "time consuming" to do it correctly. Electronic communications methods are no excuse for bastardizing our written language.

    In a day when some of our society won't even take the time to speak it (correctly or not), those of us who can use English and write correctly need to set an example.

    Will I do it in a hand-written letter? Probably not.
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  20. Member Nitemare's Avatar
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    I've seen people try the texting and chat room shortcuts in here only to get (politely) beaten down. I've always appreciated that about this site.
    Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
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  21. Member dadrab's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by Nitemare
    I've seen people try the texting and chat room shortcuts in here only to get (politely) beaten down. I've always appreciated that about this site.
    True - usually.

    But in this day and age when the texting/IM shorthand is becoming all too commonplace, it behooves those of us who understand and correctly use the language to speak up.

    Hell, there are people on this board whose native tounge isn't even English who write better than some of the jackasses who post up trying to be cute. Perhaps they just don't care. That's bad. Perhaps it's that they're typing so fast, and their lives are just so busy, that there's no time for proof reading. That's inexcusable. Perhaps it's that they're just ignorant - or dumb. Well, that i might be able to ignore, but I don't like it.

    I even read this jumbled, sloppy, error ridden excuse for a post once (on the one other board where I'm a member) where the author claimed to be ADD stricken. He then got indignant when someone advised him to think out his posts a little better next time.

    We truly live in an era when one's words can be read world-wide. Better make the most of what you write.

    Read some of the letters of Abraham Lincoln. That boy could turn a phrase - and was largely self-taught.

    It wouldn't do for me to be a teacher...too many bodies laying outside of the windows of the classroom...

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  22. I sent the answer to this poll via US Postal Service, let me know when it arrives.


    Now seriously, the only time I use regular mail is for bills/taxes/stuff alike.
    ...or for ebay (sending/receiving).
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  23. Member yoda313's Avatar
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    You know I've been using the internet since the mid 90's and I still don't know all those damn abbreviations. I tried chatrooms early on in the AOL days when I first got on and didn't really like it that much.

    Forums have a little more formality and a little more substance to them.

    It's nice to see this topic has gotten some attention here
    Donatello - The Shredder? Michelangelo - Maybe all that hardware is for making coleslaw?
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