I'm always surprised to hear people talk about how illiterate society is becoming. Because almost all my correspondents are writers, it looks to me like standards are holding up well.
But my writer correspondents commit foolishment too, and I hereby admonish them:
• Never make a list of ideas, people, places or examples and end with, "etc." Finish the fucking list.
• Emoticons are handy ways for non-writers to let correspondents know they're joking because they're too unskilled to get this across in actual words. But if you're a professional writer about to use a 😉 or a 🙂 or a :P , you should really ask yourself, WWJD: "What would Joyce do?"
• Do you really need to use so many ellipses (my own Achilles heel, along with too many parens—and em dashes) … and four question marks???? Seriously?!?!?!?!
• And if you're ever tempted to acknowledge partway through an e-mail, "I'm rambling," scroll up to the point at which you started rambling, and erase everything below it and sign your name. Problem solved!
I realize some will find pretentious the notion that writers should hold themselves above acceptable communication conventions of non-writers, but think of this, my literary friends: What if your fond novelist dreams do come true and your letters
are published someday.
Do you want readers to find them full of frowny faces, junky parens and em dashes, hapless confessions of incoherent rambling, etc.????
“…foolishment…” Really??
Mr Pot, may I introduce to you Ms. Kettle?
:-p (FYI – that’s me sticking my tongue out at you, which, I suspect is much more polite than “what Joyce would do”.)
An urban writer’s got to have the urban dictionary, which has “foolishment”:
“an action or thought that is beyond any reasonable explanation”
(Why are they having sex on the dance floor? That is complete foolishment!)
And, using this silly made up word [as we’ve discussed – on this very blog, I believe – just because it’s in a dictionary doesn’t make it a legitimate or useful word] instead of just saying: “that is beyond any reasonable explanation” would have been bad, why, again?
Do not DO NOT mess with my ellipses. DO NOT.
Kristen, first: “foolishment” passes the clarity test.
And because of its very made-up silliness, “foolishment” suggests a lighthearted intent, where “foolishness,” or “beyond any reasonable explanation” would not.
You may disagree with the choice, but it was conscious. (And, frankly, brilliant.)
If you do say so yourself!
As Eileen likes to say: “Whatev!”
Different modes for different audiences, DaMurr. When I write to or chat with Eileen and Kristen, there are lots of ellipses, exlamation points, and em dashes. It mimics conversation.
When I write professionally, it’s AP Styleguide all the way. I’ll put my professional writing standards up against anyone’s.
Effective writing means writing for your audience (unless you are a novelist, and you’re just so durn good that people buy your words no matter how you string them together).
Amy, I don’t write to my friends with lots of em dashes, exclamation points and ellipses. Does that mean I am a cold fish? What’s your impulse to mimic sloppy, choppy conversation?
David, I don’t write that way to YOU, because you don’t like it. But the shorthand (and em dashes and exclamation points) works with others because they do understand and appreciate it. (K and E, back me up, here!) Where it communicates to you that I’m being sloppy (and you find it irritating) it communicates to them that we’re close enough friends to abandon the rules and be a little silly (and they find it friendly and engaging). So back to the audience point: If you know your audience, you can adapt your communication.
And no, you are not a cold fish. Anyone who’s been to dinner with you (or seen you with your wife and sweet little daughter) could NEVER think that. You may be a bit hard core in applying formal writing rules in informal communication, but I consider that an endearing quality.
Okay, A., E. and K., but when the Epistlary W.O.L.M. is published the reviewers mistake you guys for teenybopper wannabes, don’t come bitching to me!
We won’t. I’m quite sure our matronly pictures (well, mine, anyway) at the back of the book will correct – quite firmly – any “teenybopper” misperceptions!