Posted: June 3rd, 2010 | Author: admin | Filed under: I'm sorry you typed that way, in the mail, nothing to do with the book | Tags: NYPL, public libraries | No Comments »
About twice a day a perfect argument for why even competent writers need editors lands in my Inbox. Below is the latest, and it typifies one of the primary ways organizations misuse email, churning out external communications that are not only too long but also, ultimately, ineffectual.
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Posted: January 4th, 2010 | Author: admin | Filed under: I'm sorry you typed that way, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Why not put “Life explorer, multimedia storyteller, experience architect” on your business card? Lucy Kellaway explains.
Posted: June 20th, 2008 | Author: admin | Filed under: I'm sorry you typed that way | Tags: email, how to sour afternoons and alienate people, improvisational comedy, uncultured oafs | 2 Comments »
I’m starting a series. I’ve been fascinated by cruddy emails lately. Emails like the one below, sent to a good friend of mine:
XXXXXXXX, I was stumbling around the internet and just read your little article about XXXXX. Every single one of your points were simply nit picking and most of the time you kept pointing out that many miss the humor, well perhaps it is only YOU who misses the humor because you are a stupid, uncultured, picky oaf who can’t simply enjoy a movie, but must pick apart all of the very, very insignificant problems with it. So XXXXX thinks that improv is a more real and funnier way to get the humor out, it worked in XX! . . . And some movies turn out much better when the humor is improvised. . . . I’m just wondering why you can’t just enjoy things and why you have such a problem with unimportant things.
You’re a cock wrench!
-XXXXXX
Would this sender — a stranger, I’ll add — have written this sentiment longhand, signed and stamped it? No. But email brings out the indignant seventh-grader in people.
So I’m seeking examples of cruddy emails. Any missive that made your eyes widen, I’d love to see. (I had to Google “cock wrench,” incidentally. It’s really a very, very interesting choice of words.)
Please x-out names and details. We’re not looking to invade anyone’s privacy; we just want to see what themes develop.
On a related note, yesterday I was reading letters by Vincent Van Gogh to his brother Theo and came across this line: “Admire as much as you can, most people don’t admire enough.”