By Edward Langer, October 30, 2014 — Where would we be without writing? Well, we’d be without Pericles’ Funeral Oration and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. And what else has the noble proportion of a hand-written thank-you note, or the compassion of a get-well card?
When you know the writer, you can hear their voice in the words you read, and at times see their facial expressions and hand gestures. My mother’s Aunt Lilly wrote long letters to friends and family. These missives really had no beginning and – curiously – no end. She’d start in the middle of a thought and finish when she tired of the idea. Lilly used no punctuation, with caps interspersed here and there, but all who received these letters understood and appreciated them.
So, one’s writing need not be gloriously impassioned and fluidly drop from the tongue in order to be compelling. Reading someone’s private journal centuries later is frequently informative. I learned that Lilly’s husband Ben stopped production of his “famous” hand soap – Zippo Hand Soap for grimy hands – because the pumice was imported from Italy. When Mussolini took power there, he stopped its export.
Language changes, and that can be exciting. Now, when I text I write Thx for “thanks” and u for “you,” and – like Shakespeare – create some of my own new words. Reading others’ writing will always be a cool experience – so write on to keep it that way.