A Lament On The Disappearance Of The Hand Written Letter (But It Hasn't!)

[BigBlot]

The family has stopped writing letters on paper. In it's place are texts and posts on social media. E-mail seems passé as we near the second quarter of the 21st Century. Even in my childhood, letter writing was passing away, replaced by the telephone. 

 

As a matter of personal convenience, it perhaps means little. From the standpoint of future historians, it means a great deal. Sure, we can keep a copy of every e-mail we write on a hard drive, but will historians be able to access them even a century from now? Probably not. Now consider that the oldest known letters are the Amarna letters, dating to the 14th Century BC. Archeologists have recovered, and read, letters of at least one Roman soldier, written in the 1st Century AD. Our era will not leave any such windows into our daily lives, because electronics fail over time, and data formats change. Ironically, though we have more information at our fingertips than any other time in history, our era may well be a huge blank to future historians.

 

Sorry if that's a downer. It's just something that comes to mind from time to time.

[Karmachanic]

Note  to self; use more IG inks.

[Madeline]

26 minutes ago, Karmachanic said:

Note  to self; use more IG inks.

Because of their permanence?  I hadn't thought of that.  How permanent were the inks used in fountain pens a hundred years ago?  (And did they consider that when they purchased their ink?) 

[Karmachanic]

Here ya go: https://irongallink.org/igi_index8a92.html

There were no Diamine inks for those manuscript writing medieval monks. 🤪

[Checklist]

On 8/15/2020 at 12:19 PM, cellmatrix said:

I think we all have to consider once its posted on the internet its probably going to be around forever. In contrast paper can become destroyed n a fire or flood, get lost etc. In that sense paper is far less permanent.

 

If nothing else, careful attention to the "streaming wars" would disabuse us of the first notion.  People are starting to figure out that "buying" a movie to stream just means that they only bought a voucher that's good as long as the service wants it to be.  Heaven help you if the director or studio wants to replace the version you prefer with theirs.  If you want to watch the movie you want whenever you want, better buy the DVD.  It may be harder for us to get something off the internet, but it is very easy to do if you control the storage ("the clouuuuud") or the copyrights. 

 

I also have come across 20-year-old Word and Excel files, and the corresponding 2016 programs cannot open them, even just to convert them; they are lost, even if the bits are there.  Obsolescence is erasing more documents than any fire or flood.  Paper may be somewhat fragile, but unless we compare it to stone or metals, it's a very durable medium, much more than digital.

 

Long story short, I whole-heartedly agree with @BigBlot.  Despite being one of "them millennials" by birthdate, I much prefer to keep information in physical form (no, having an excuse to play with my pens has nothing to do with that...).  All my notes at work are in hand-written.  I have three folders full of letters from my father, grandmother, and great aunt, and we still write regularly.  My daughters will hopefully love them whenever they get passed along to them.  Of course, they will probably have thousands of letters from me taking up all their storage space by then.

[JayHomeBody]

I stopped writing letters about a year... ok 2-3 years ago, due to depression. But I've just gotten a penpal again and I'm excited for it! 

[cellmatrix]

On 1/10/2021 at 2:53 PM, Checklist said:

 

If nothing else, careful attention to the "streaming wars" would disabuse us of the first notion.  People are starting to figure out that "buying" a movie to stream just means that they only bought a voucher that's good as long as the service wants it to be.  Heaven help you if the director or studio wants to replace the version you prefer with theirs.  If you want to watch the movie you want whenever you want, better buy the DVD.  It may be harder for us to get something off the internet, but it is very easy to do if you control the storage ("the clouuuuud") or the copyrights. 

 

I also have come across 20-year-old Word and Excel files, and the corresponding 2016 programs cannot open them, even just to convert them; they are lost, even if the bits are there.  Obsolescence is erasing more documents than any fire or flood.  Paper may be somewhat fragile, but unless we compare it to stone or metals, it's a very durable medium, much more than digital.

 

Long story short, I whole-heartedly agree with @BigBlot.  Despite being one of "them millennials" by birthdate, I much prefer to keep information in physical form (no, having an excuse to play with my pens has nothing to do with that...).  All my notes at work are in hand-written.  I have three folders full of letters from my father, grandmother, and great aunt, and we still write regularly.  My daughters will hopefully love them whenever they get passed along to them.  Of course, they will probably have thousands of letters from me taking up all their storage space by then.

Lol, I was not talking about movies, I was talking about electronic correspondence. When it comes to electronic correspondence, I have emails for example from 1995 (the year I started writing emails), and I can not only open them, I can search for them and work with them just fine. So for me emails are pretty darn durable at least for the last 26 years. As far as word processing documents, I agree that the program compatibility has not been stellar. Not a good choice I agree for long term reproducibility. However I suspect that if you really wanted to open a file from an obsolete program, most of the time you will be able to find a way to do it, if you set your mind to it and get some expert help.

 

Having said that,  I really am on everyone's side here. I love writing hand writing letters and love receiving them. I too am sad at the thought they may pass by the wayside over time. I hope not.  I sympathize with your wanting your daughters to have your letters. That is a pretty wonderful idea. 

[Madeline]

On 1/10/2021 at 4:23 PM, Karmachanic said:

Here ya go: https://irongallink.org/igi_index8a92.html

There were no Diamine inks for those manuscript writing medieval monks. 🤪

 

Ah, thank you for this link! 

 

I do treasure the hand-written letters I've received over the years.  Now, boxes and boxes of them.  I also save many emails but I don't seem to go back to them.  But letters!  There is something so special about the physicality of a letter--or of any tangible object.  I don't think an electronic communication can quite match the uniqueness of a hand-penned missive.  (Not to mention the envelopes, those stamps!)  And anyone who has ever received an illustrated letter (or an illustrated envelope :-) might agree, that kind of expressive joy might be difficult to replicate in an electronic message (though our electronic graphic artists could perhaps come close).  And letters have scents!  I think that letters will continue as long as pen and ink and paper remain available.  

 

[brokenclay]

Another article about the resurgence of physical letter writing during the pandemic: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/mar/23/a-letter-tells-someone-they-still-matter-the-sudden-surprising-return-of-the-pen-pal

 

 

[OCArt]

Whoa!  88 Penpals!  How does she keep the personalities straight?

[brokenclay]

Quote

They share an exercise book, which they take turns to write in, posting the book back and forth rather than writing paper.

 

What an interesting idea! Then the whole correspondence is right there at hand, no wondering what I wrote 3 letters ago! I'd like to try that with someone.

[LizEF]

1 hour ago, OCArt said:

Whoa!  88 Penpals!  How does she keep the personalities straight?

I'll bet if you sat down and started writing, you could list 88 people you know.  It might take a while, but I bet you could do it (even if you don't know all their names).  I'm an extreme introvert and rarely spend time in person with anyone, but even I could probably manage this - especially if I include online people I interact with enough to recognize their user name.  In other words, I think we all know more people than we consciously realize we know.

 

My question is, how does she find time!?  I guess this must be her main non-work activity, but then what does she write about?  Anyhoo, it's admirable.  Part of me wants to give it a shot, the rest of me can't think of anything I would write.