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BS: Do you still write actual letters?
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Subject: BS: Do you still write letters to anyone? From: GUEST,Lin Date: 01 Jul 15 - 02:20 AM What with e-mails, texting, etc. I was curious how many of you still write (long hand) letters to anyone? It seems like it has become a thing of the past in this ever changing technical world we live in. Everyone communicates by email or texting. Does anyone still write actual letters to friends, acquaintances, family members who you don't see very often anymore? When was the last time you wrote a letter to someone? Even actual phone calls to chat to friends seems to be a rare thing we do. This is something I miss that people used to do. There are a few friends that don't live nearby that I enjoy talking to on the phone. I don't text - never have if you can believe that! When I got a cell phone (it is just a cell phone only) not a Smart Phone, I called the company and told them I do not want to use the texting feature on my phone. I don't get charged for that as I don't use that feature even though it was available to use on this cell phone. I use it strictly as a phone only which is ok with me - no texting. It does not have internet, games, apps, etc. So my bill is only about $33.00 a month. I have my computer at home. I do like to write letters to friends that I don't see or that live far away. I have a friend in Ireland and Switzerland and England that I write to several times a year. I am in USA. We don't even email each other - we all write actual letters. They are all in their mid to late 50's & 60's so writing letters is something they all grew up with. I enjoy getting their letters. It is nice to see a hand-written letter arrive at my house from faraway friends. I know we all have busy schedules and emails and texting seems to be the way most people prefer to communicate anymore but it is very nice to write and receive a letter like we used to (what seems like a long time ago now. :-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Do you still write actual letters? From: GUEST,HiLo Date: 01 Jul 15 - 02:38 AM I still write letters. I never text but I do use e mail. But, letters seem so much bore personal. I have a young relative in far away place and I write regularly. The first time I wrote, about ten years ago, she phoned to say that mine was the first letter she had ever received. We still write letters. And I write them with fountain pen. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Do you still write actual letters? From: Joe Offer Date: 01 Jul 15 - 02:41 AM I'll be 67 in a few weeks. It hurts my hands to write in cursive, and I've never been very good at it. Most of my life, I've printed things - maybe it has something to do with being left-handed. I've used a computer every day sing 1988, and that is my preferred writing medium. I still print out and snailmail some letters, but I admit that most of my communication is by email. I always include a salutation and a signature on my emails, though. I started texting regularly about a year ago, when I got a phone that allowed me to dictate texts instead of typing on that tiny keyboard. It makes very few mistakes. I find texting very handy for conveying brief information, especially after the time that it's appropriate to make a phone call. I don't converse by text - just use it for appointment information and the like. -Joe- |
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Subject: RE: BS: Do you still write actual letters? From: Will Fly Date: 01 Jul 15 - 03:30 AM Oddly enough, I was going through a drawer of pens of various sorts - ink, rollerball, etc. - and looking over them. I remembered I had some very nice gold-nibbed fillers like Parker, Waterman, Cross, etc. I scooped the whole lot up and took them to a specialist shop in Eastbourne (UK south coast), which is about an hour away from me. The shop is called The Scribe, and it sells - pens, paper, inks, envelopes, writing stuff of all sorts. I bought cartridge refills for everything, some nice quality paper and envelopes and went home to write letters. My niece in Portland, Oregon was surprised and delighted to get one! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Do you still write actual letters? From: GUEST,Grishka Date: 01 Jul 15 - 04:22 AM Handwritten letters are a must if you want to signal high personal involvement, for example
Letters from famous writers fetch high prices at auction. Just imagine how rich you can make the recipients ... ;) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Do you still write actual letters? From: Mr Red Date: 01 Jul 15 - 04:30 AM Ah but in English law (at least) the copyright remains with the author, the physical item remains the property of the recipient or who they sell to. When copyright ends naturally, it seem that copyright descends to the owner of the document. Interestingly enough. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Do you still write actual letters? From: GUEST, ^*^ Date: 01 Jul 15 - 08:11 AM Thank you notes are usually short and are best hand-written. I was delighted to receive two of them from a pair of elderly friends who stayed with me for a few days recently. I have a stack of blank note cards and a roll of stamps for this kind of use. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Do you still write actual letters? From: Phil Cooper Date: 01 Jul 15 - 08:19 AM I haven't written letters for a long time. Even when I did, I typed them, because my handwriting is terrible. Were I to write a letter today, I'd do it on a computer and print it out and send it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Do you still write actual letters? From: Phil Cooper Date: 01 Jul 15 - 08:20 AM I should add that when I used to write letters to my friends, when I was in college, or just out, in the late 1970's very few friends actually wrote back. One of the reasons my letter output eventually dwindled. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Do you still write actual letters? From: Mrrzy Date: 01 Jul 15 - 08:53 AM I write letters of condolence only, these days. And Phil Cooper, back when letters were being written, I was the one who was terrible at writing back, I am so sorry now. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Do you still write actual letters? From: Rapparee Date: 01 Jul 15 - 09:06 AM I have written, by hand, letters all of my life. Some of them were illegible then and still are. Now I usually write the letters on a computer (I used to use a typewriter and we still have one), print them and the envelope, sign the letter after proofreading it, and mail (post) it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Do you still write actual letters? From: GUEST,crazy little woman Date: 01 Jul 15 - 11:58 AM When I looked in my friend's cupboard (at her request) and found that her New Age nurse had given her vitamins with 200 times the RDA, I wrote to her internist. My friend thanked me. I wrote a letter to my sister's therapist when I sensed that my sister has been masking problems that the therapist didn't seem to be catching on to. (I'm paying for the therapy.) I believe that people pay more attention to a letter than to anything else. But mostly I use e-mail. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Do you still write actual letters? From: Bat Goddess Date: 01 Jul 15 - 12:19 PM I still write letters, though not longhand. Out of respect for the reader (and so I have an easy copy), I use the computer (and have for decades). I also send cards, thank you notes (which I just might write out longhand), and postcards. Some people get long, chatty emails instead of letters. I keep copies of those, too, as well as of any long, chatty emails I receive. Sometimes the same people get both. I also send news clippings and stuff to people. I LOVE getting letters, cards, postcards, etc. Things that aren't bills or advertising. I also save my letters and those I've received. Just recently I was re-reading letters from 1980, before I met Tom. And from the last few years of the 1970s including letters to and from my former mother-in-law about my first husband's problems with alcohol, lying, and other dishonesty. Makes really interesting reading from this far remove. I don't text. But, then again, most people don't have my cell phone number. I choose to use the cell phone for MY convenience. I prefer to carry on conversations or business from my land line. It's more comfortable, I can hear better (unless the other person is on a cell phone), and, quite honestly, I prefer to be unavailable at times. I get really annoyed if I'm with someone or a group and they're constantly watching their cell phone to see if they've gotten a text (or a picture of a kitten). My phone isn't a smart phone. It's not a stupid phone (just cell phone), either. It's somewhere in between. I don't pay for internet on it. Linn |
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Subject: RE: BS: Do you still write actual letters? From: GUEST,Musket sans Jaffa cake Date: 01 Jul 15 - 12:22 PM Like Will, I noticed a number of really good pens sat in a drawer recently. Mostly gifts, including a few Parkers, a Waterman from my eldest son and a Mont Blanc the first Mrs Musket bought me. Sadly, I don't get to use them.. However, I do write as such. I bought a Livescribe a few years ago, and with the special paper and microphone built into it, it records what you write and hear. If you then point your mouse at the text at any point once uploaded, it plays what the microphone hears at that point. Excellent for making notes in meetings or, when I was regulating hospitals, interviews with staff that went into inspection reports. It was approved for contemporaneous notes if you kept the originals but the audio wouldn't be admissible as evidence for PACE interviews under caution. My handwriting? Awful. But not the worst in the house, being married to a doctor.. (I published (with others) a paper on patient safety that tagged the decrease in bad dispensing of prescription medicines with the advent of paperless prescribing. I took great pleasure in sending Mrs Musket a copy, which she scrawled something illegible on and gave it me back. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Do you still write actual letters? From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link Date: 01 Jul 15 - 03:24 PM I write a few letters to relatives and friends that I don't get to see much, every Christmas with cards. The occasional business letter, and short notes in occasion cards, otherwise not much. I got two boxes of cards sent as " free gifts " from charities which I keep even though I won't use many. I suppose with more internet greetings, ordinary cards are getting redundant to a greater degree, and end up as charities "gifts" |
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Subject: RE: BS: Do you still write actual letters? From: GUEST,Olddude Date: 01 Jul 15 - 03:42 PM Sadly only to my amish friends |
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Subject: RE: BS: Do you still write actual letters? From: Joe_F Date: 01 Jul 15 - 04:03 PM I am 77. I used to write a lot of letters, and keep carbon copies of my own, so I still have many old correspondences complete. I even studied italic script & switched from typing to handwriting for a number of years. Then, when long-distance telephoning became cheap, I spent a lot of time on the phone with my best buddy, so the record of that friendship has a hole in it. When email appeared, it quickly replaced both the postoffice & the telephone; it has all the advantages of both & then some. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Do you still write actual letters? From: Joe Offer Date: 01 Jul 15 - 06:16 PM Gee, I like this thread. Maybe twenty years ago, I started buying a supply of greeting cards. I was finding that I disregarded a lot of occasions because I didn't have a card and stamps at hand, so I resolved to buy good cards whenever I found them at a good price. I get most of my cards at the dollar store, two for a buck, and they're just fine - so are the ones I get for free with charity solicitations. Since it hurts to write in cursive, I print two or three sentences by hand on the card, address the envelope by hand, and put it in the mail the next day. I find that people really appreciate my three-sentence cards, and my generous supply of cards and stamps gives me no excuse for procrastination. -Joe- |
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Subject: RE: BS: Do you still write actual letters? From: Ebbie Date: 01 Jul 15 - 10:32 PM I too prefer to write letters on the computer; I figure I'm doing the recipient a favor. It is much easier to read print than my own handwriting. I do have one friend that I handwrite letters to- only because I know that the emailed letters I get from him on occasion are produced by him in the laborious hunt and peck way. In between them I get numerous cards and notes from him in his beautiful handwriting and decorated with his pen and ink artwork. He is a doll. Me, not so much. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Do you still write actual letters? From: GUEST,Dave Date: 02 Jul 15 - 02:37 AM Since Royal Mail was privatised at cut down price, and Moya Green was imported from overseas to run it, I am almost as averse to handing my money over them as I am to give it to Murdoch's organs. So no, no letters, no Christmas Cards, only a payment by cheque when there is no other way. |
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Subject: Father John and the two blessings From: wysiwyg Date: 02 Jul 15 - 12:46 PM I hand write post-it notes to personalize typed matter. I phone people I used to write. I hand write ideas that come on the fly when a memo onto the fone is not possiible, sometimes on my hand or leg if I'm driving or if no paper can be found. (Those go to fone or puder soon after, for digital transmission.) But in my circles, Grishka's list of "must-write" occasions, for me, are show up in person occasions. And people have generally reacted very appreciatively, because we live in a remote place making showing up (usually) a long drive most folks don't make. A close-by one from the Sunday just past, I will describe: My DH is an Episcopal priest who has always had more effective collegiality with the local RC priest tan with his farther-away Espiscopal peers. As the RCs rotate their cures more often than he does, he's had a series of uniquely sweet relationships thereby. Sunday, Father John (RC) was celebrating his last Mass here before being placed 3 hours away. We managed to squeeze our presence at an event at our parish just enough to get to that Mass (with reception to follow), just in time to get to the back of the line of communicants receiving Fr. John's last Communion among them. The RCs don't authorize Communion for non-Rcers, so as I stepped to Fr. John's hands I removed my glasses, and asked a blessing. He lovingly administered one (laying on hands). I followed the communicants who had been ahead of me in line, to a nearby pew. My DH was behind me, last in line. He stepped forward and also asked for a blessing. As Fr. John finished my DH's blessing, he asked my DH to bless him in return. THIS IS NOT DONE publicly-- to openly acknowledge the validity of a non-RC priest's ordination! But it was so Gracious, and right for that moment. No one could hear the words used... but the body language of a blessing conferred is the same, RC or Episcopal. A number of Fr. John's parishioners came to us in tears of joy, at the reception, about that moment. A card could never have done it. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Do you still write actual letters? From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 03 Jul 15 - 01:53 AM I write letters .... trained in the Palmer cursive script .... my 0's and b's have "little begger hands." I also like good stationary, with a watermark and Crane has served well. Notes to older family members most often are penned on tablet paper, closely mimicing their's. (one does not want to pu on aires with one's aunts. Sincerely, Gargoyle "the printed word endures through the ages |
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Subject: RE: BS: Do you still write actual letters? From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link Date: 03 Jul 15 - 11:57 AM I don't know what a DH is, but a lovely story, wysiwyg. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Do you still write actual letters? From: Joe Offer Date: 05 Jul 15 - 12:12 AM "DH" can mean any number of things. I had my share of acronyms and abbreviations when I was in the Army, so I hate 'em. But I guess some people like them. I wonder if they use them in handwritten letters, or only when texting.... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Do you still write actual letters? From: Stilly River Sage Date: 05 Jul 15 - 12:31 AM Agreed, Gargoyle. Some relatives, older ones in particular, received handwritten letters on a nice notepaper. My favorite was a lovely but relatively inexpensive tablet I used to buy in a Japanese gift and hardware store. DH is most likely "dear husband" or "dear heart." |
