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Friday, August 10, 2007

Reading & Writing (No Arithmetic)

Another Close Family Member Publishes a Book

We now have four published authors in the family: Myself, and two other members. The fourth, my grandmother, was one of the few female journalists in the 1930s - 50s.

I'm very happy for this most recent author, and have been asked to oversee the marketing. She, on the other hand, is quite shy and doesn't like the necessary publicity she is going to have to go through in order to market the book. I will have to do a lot of cajoling and some bullying. :-P

The Art of Emails

Although emails have been decried as depersonalizing the workplace, I find that there's a great art to them. I often prefer them to speaking, as there are times it's better to say, or not to say, something in print than in person. I also find that they're a good way of keeping a distance, yet maintaining a kindly professional tone. And (admit it!), there are some people that are better kept at a distance.

One of the great bonuses of emails is The Caveat. You know - It's tacked onto the end of an email and reads something like this:

This email is intended for the intended recipient only. Should you not be the intended recipient, you will be sued or shot on sight: Whichever is easier. Should you be the intended recipient, you'd better read it and then destroy it. Whatever else you do, don't let it fall into the hands of the enemy. This message will self-destruct in 3.... 2.... 1....

I've decided to start sending out Caveats more often.

4 comments:

mal said...

I kind of like the caveat *L*

I think e-mails are great. Is it as pretty as letters? No, but so what? It is people communicating. Is the form as "artistic"? I think it can be. It is all in the writer, not the medium.

My brothers and I communicate at least every few days regardless of where we are and what we are doing (They will range from Taipei to Istabul)or how busy we are. Before e-mail we were losing touch.

What I am glad to see is a large reduction in the "Re:FW this is funny" stuff. Now if we could eliminate SPAM

Ellen said...

Many congrats to you for sharing your skills; you have a great command of the English language, and the proper way to punctuate it. I can't tell you how many times I would get frustrated reading random blogs out there that made no sense due to the poor writing skills. Two thumbs up, Saur!

The Lazy Iguana said...

I briefly looked into teaching English in Korea. I thought that may be cool. Of course the problem there is that the job would be in Korea. Kind of a long daily commute. I asked the President where Korea was and he said "somewhere near Georgia". But I do not know if that is true, he is not very good at geography. I think it is closer to New York.

Anyway, I have something else in the line.

Three Score and Ten or more said...

I love caveats, even though I don't use them very often. I was in Hood River Oregon the other day and passed an antique store with a semi-caveat (really just a warning) in the window. It said
"UNATTENDED CHILDREN WILL BE GIVEN EXPRESSO AND A FREE PUPPY." I'd like to think of a similar caveat for email, but "as for me my little brain isn't very bright". . . .(no sense bringing Santa into this)