DEAR Editor;
I make reference to Jenni Bipat’s article dated April 9 this year – Is letter writing becoming obsolete?
Thank you for touching on a relevant subject that I certainly deem to be of importance. Words matter.
We mind them and they provide more than guidance across the board. They work on us and into us. They can harm and they can heal.
At whatever age, there can sadly be a disconnect and a void when we lose the ability to communicate expressively, usefully and conclusively in words.
Words, as literary devices should not be under-estimated.
However, if we do not in this day encourage the simple art of letter writing or polite communication by personal expression I fear we shall lose the ability to harness and retain those delightful intricacies of a language that can express and impress, portray sentiments, give clarity to arguments, attribute weight to emotions, plus many other myriad unique manifestations that can be evoked by the writer.
A personal missive will allow you to be creatively poetic or provokingly provocative if need be.
When employing the less formal e-mail format, mentally, one becomes perhaps recklessly lucid in an attempt to rapidly communicate a message with the least possible number of words thus compromising, to a certain degree, deeper truths and underlying emotional currents.
We all have favourite words from our treasured lexicon – one of my treasured ones would be ‘oxymoron’; let us ensure that by encouraging letter writing we remember them, hone them and share them.
I do have, also, another somewhat oblique reason to encourage letter writing: as a budding graphologist there is great merit in being able to silently delve into the personality representations that emerge from a hand-written letter.
One can discern therefrom a wealth of information beyond the public persona of the writer.
YEGAS NAIDOO
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