The Art of Writing

Twenty years ago, if someone would have told me, In the future, there is going to be this thing called "texting" and it is going to be huge! People will use their phone’s keypad to write messages and they will carry on complete conversations without ever talking, I would have responded, "You are crazy!"

But, it is true! The future is here, and I would say that for the vast majority of people, writing is the preferred method of communication.

I find it fascinating how communication has evolved over the years. For example, if you wanted to communicate with someone outside of your home one hundred years ago, you would have written that person a letter or dropped him a postcard. During my parents’ generation in the 1950’s, the telephone was a popular form of communication; however, party lines and the high cost of long-distance calls rendered the phone impractical, keeping the art of writing alive. In fact, after my father was drafted, letters were the only way my parents were able to keep their overseas romance kindled.

By the time I was a teenager in the 1980’s, the telephone was my lifeline to the outside world. Everyday when I got home from school, I would immediately pick up the phone and call my best friend, whom I had just left at the bus stop not five minute before. The phone was attached to the wall, but that didn’t stop me from stretching the cord clear across the kitchen, so that I could hold my conversation in private in the pantry. Even my first real job involved the telephone—I worked in a call center where people would call-in to place catalog orders. The old-timers in the office were amazed that the number of phone orders over took the mailed-in orders by a ratio of 10-to-1.

My 1980’s self would be so jealous of today’s teenagers. It seems every teenager has her own phone—no more having to hang up so that your sister can take a turn—today’s kids are free to talk as much as they want. But they’re not talking, they’re texting! And my friends? They’re no longer calling—they’re e-mailing!

It seems the pendulum has now swung back the other way, and we have moved from verbal conversations back to written correspondences. Everything we do today—online shopping, social networking, job searching, e-mailing—all involve writing.

But, with all of that writing, people are often unsure if what they have written is grammatically correct and come to me, a full-time writer, asking for grammar tips. Perhaps it is because we took a couple-decades hiatus from writing that some of our grammar skills have lost their luster. Sure, you could pick up a grammar book at the library, but how do you know if what you’ve written is a split infinitive if you don’t know what one looks like?

This is where I come in… every week I will post a grammar tip that I hope you will find helpful with your writing. I’ll start with the tips that people frequently ask me about, such as the "who vs. whom" debate or the "what’s the purpose of a semicolon?" tutorial. I hope I can clear-up any grammar questions you may have with my blog postings, but if your topic is not being covered, I hope you will feel free to write to me with any grammar question you may have at grammarguide@sbcglobal.net.

Until next week, happy writing!