When Did People Stop Writing Letters As Part Of Everyday Life?

[Harlequin]

As I'm still looking for a job after being laid off earlier this year, I think I'll definitely be using my FP to write Thank You notes for after interviews from now on (that is, when and if I get any- it's been about 3 weeks since my last and that, I think anyway, was perfunctory as they'd obviously already decided). Maybe it will give me an edge, who knows?

[nana_kathy]

i appreciate the thoughtful comments already posted, and wanted to add a little from my own experience.

 

I admit to using my computer and phone to do must of my personal communication. I call and text my children and email the family as a whole when I have something to communicate to everyone. It's just easier and faster.

 

But, while my Mother was living, she never stopped writing to me. Even when I would call and talk several times a week, there was nearly always a letter in the mail every week (she didn't have a computer). I would not part with the letters I have saved, now that she is gone. I can only hear her voice in memory, but I can still read her letters and they are priceless. I wish I had saved more of them now. The same is true for other family members, long passed.

 

Our letters keep us connected in ways that modern communication will never do, and IMHO it's too bad that we're moving away from the hand written letter. Yes, you can print an email or save a text message0, but it's typeface is impersonal on the page. A letter in hand writing that you recognize is something else entirely.

[fiberdrunk]

I found some letters from both of my great-grandmothers that were written to me in the mid-80's, during my freshman year at college. They wrote me 3-4 times a month that school year. Those letters mean even more to me now than they did then, especially now that my grandmothers are gone. There's just no substitute for the tangible reality of a handwritten letter.

Edited December 14, 2012 by fiberdrunk

[Runnin_Ute]

As a result of this conversation, I just realized something. Just this holiday season, I received a card- this particular card was a multi - layered card with areas (images/letters) which were glued to the card stock. A sheet had been placed between the front of the card and the envelope - and it was almost onion skin thin. Probably the same type of concept as the wax sealed envelope inside a larger envelope.

 

A comment that Pickwick made in his first post in this thread (post #2) caused me to ruminate for a page and a half over a couple of days on the topic. Stirred the old memory banks as things I hadn't even thought about in ages came out of the tip of my pen. (about the fact that writers no longer give any real thought to what they write)

 

Thanks, Pickwick!!

[XupengW]

Since we have email and many Instant Messengers, hand writing becomes unnecessary to most people. However, the art of pen and the pleasure when you writing with a pen are irreplaceable.

[MTS2]

  On 12/18/2012 at 4:40 AM, XupengW said:

Since we have email and many Instant Messengers, hand writing becomes unnecessary to most people. However, the art of pen and the pleasure when you writing with a pen are irreplaceable.

You 'hit the nail on the head' with this post! The experience of putting pen to paper is irreplaceable.

[rwilsonedn]

One thing that intrigues me about the transition from hand-written letters to e-mail to texting is that the change in media necessarily changed the thinking processes behind the messages. For example, when business communications, even between offices in neighboring parts of the same city, were conducted by dip-pen and post, one had to expect that there would be a significant interval between when one sat down to write and when the recipient would read. And there would be a significant interval before a reply could appear. So one had to plan not just what to say, but how to make one's words clear and unambiguous. Since there would be no opportunity to quickly detect and repair an unintentional offense, one erred on the side of graciousness. And because of the long intervals, one thought seriously about the work one was pursuing with one's correspondent, tried to move the work forward by a significant amount, and considered what the letter would mean when it arrived, not what it might mean in the present moment. One did not sent an international letter in November asking about an associate's Christmas plans. For that matter, one did not presume that a correspondent's elderly relatives were living. I think the same considerations would have gone into personal correspondence as well.

To me it seems that there is an essential loss here. I don't put that kind of thought--about the recipient, his situation, his future, or his likely reaction to my words--into an e-mail. I have no sense of the pace of the conversation, and, frankly, I don't both to put as much work into advancing the relationship as I would if I knew the recipient would not read my words for days, or months. That lack impoverishes my correspondence and myself.

ron

[Harlequin]

  On 12/14/2012 at 5:38 AM, Harlequin said:

As I'm still looking for a job after being laid off earlier this year, I think I'll definitely be using my FP to write Thank You notes for after interviews from now on (that is, when and if I get any- it's been about 3 weeks since my last and that, I think anyway, was perfunctory as they'd obviously already decided). Maybe it will give me an edge, who knows?

 

I am very proud to say that using my Sheaffer Nononsense, I wrote and delivered two 'Thank You' notes today after a job interview I had around lunch time to the two people that conducted it. I don't know if they will make a difference, but I just feel really good that I followed through with it, especially since I was inspired to do it that way by this thread!

[Mags]

I always believe the handwritten note is classy. Good luck with the search for your next position.

[Duke of Buckingham]

I had an interesting conversation with my father recently, having read that the UK postal service was much better in Victorian times than today.

 

He’s just turned 70 and is living in the English Midlands, so it might not apply to the US, but he recalled that the postal service was amazing up until around 40 or 50 years ago. As recently as the late 1960s, few houses in the area had phones – so mail was the most efficient means of communication. There were numerous postal deliveries per day, which equated to very prompt deliveries.

 

He recalled that something mailed shortly before midnight would be with the recipient across town first thing the next morning. Something mailed in the morning would arrive that afternoon. There was even a mail collection service on some buses.

 

A fair percentage of this mail, however, was banal – his example was his (married) sister sending a card saying she was going to visit her parents on Saturday afternoon, just to make sure they would be home. It’s the kind of thing we confirm by phone nowadays, or more likely, by email.

 

Telephones became common in the late ‘60s/early ‘70s, and I think the mail service declined with it. The subsequent rise of email and the cell phones means that cross-town communication is now immediate. Even though I refuse to carry a cell phone, I see this as progress. For everyday communication, the pen is a vehicle I use to express my ideas, just like a keyboard. One is luxurious, the other immediate.

 

As an aside, you would expect all this technology would have rendered the mailman redundant, but I've read there is currently more mail being delivered than ever, mainly due to advertising fliers and people buying things on eBay.

 

Back to letter writing. . .

 

I have to admit that I was a regular letter writer back in university, a little over 20 years ago – long distance calls were a lot more expensive back then, particularly from a phone box.

 

But nowadays, I tend to only write letters at Christmastime, tucked into cards. I really do intend to write more often. . .

 

Fountain pens, like mechanical watches (another passion of mine), are coming back, but marketed as upscale, exclusive items. This gives me hope for letter writing in future, even if it is only a seasonal luxury.

[Harlequin]

  On 12/21/2012 at 8:05 PM, Duke of Buckingham said:

Fountain pens, like mechanical watches (another passion of mine), are coming back, but marketed as upscale, exclusive items. This gives me hope for letter writing in future, even if it is only a seasonal luxury.

Tell me about it- it makes it very hard for new people to really get involved with them. I LOVE pocket watches, for example, but could never in my dreams really afford some of the ones that I'd really like- and not b/c they are "luxury" type items or anything. More b/c that's how they've come to be treated by (mostly I assume) the people who want to sell them.

 

 

 

[georges zaslavsky]

When I was younger (I think I was 14 at that time) I had letter exchanged with a German girl during a year after that I stopped. Otherwise I always wrote to my relatives. I really started to get involved in letter exchange thanks to fpn.

[balson]

  On 10/17/2012 at 3:37 AM, fuchsiaprincess said:

  On 10/17/2012 at 3:32 AM, pakmanpony said:

  On 10/16/2012 at 11:45 PM, Pickwick said:

  On 10/16/2012 at 4:25 PM, pakmanpony said:

Sadly I'm an instant gratification kind of guy. I rarely write letters and have never been much of a letter writer. I've started quite a few letters to communicate some information and ended up scrapping the letter and giving the person a call or dropping them an email. Between calls, email, texts and facebook there is very little information left to send in a letter to the people I want to keep in touch with.

With every respect what do you use the elegant pen you display for?

 

I use it for making important decisions! I have a dart board across the room and take my pen out of it's beautiful case and jam the cap on the back and sail it across the room into the dart board and let the number it lands on make the decision for me.

 

Actually it goes into rotation (like all of my pens) and gets used extensively for all of the different things we all use fountain pens for, just not usually for writing letters. As the point of this thread is that people don't write letters anymore, should it be suprising that many of the folks here on FPN don't hand write letters anymore!?

 

But what are they, Perry? I find that other than writing letters, I seldom use my fountain pens for anything else. "To Do" lists and diary entries are all electronic for me.

 

 

drawing! fountain pens allow you to have the beautiful linework of a dip pen in a portable package. with noodlers ink the drawings are also lightfast and archival. most disposable pens are not lightfast. if more people in the fine arts new about how reliable affordable and convenient fountain pens are they might be more popular. there are a ton of artists being churned out in america each year. china produces 200,000 new graduates in animation a year. if you think of 1/2 of those being required to buy a fountain pen with a flex nib as a standard drawing supply that is a serious enough market.

[ZachWasniak]

I wish my middle school did letter exchanges with other middle schools from other states or even countries. It, in my opinion, would be a lot more enjoyable than starring at a screen all the time. Might enhance our vocabulary as well, and make us smarter!

[WaskiSquirrel]

This is tangential. I mostly E-mail my family and friends. I surprised a few people this Christmas with handwritten letters, but don't do this very often.

 

About 7 years ago, I had the idea in my head that I should write a letter to my grandparents. I wrote them sporadically, and they were not computer owners. So, I wrote the letter and didn't have a stamp. I was a little lazy about getting to the post office, but there was voice in my head telling me to find a way to mail the letter. I didn't mail it.

 

I got a call from my parents that my grandfather had suffered a stroke. He died two days later. I wish now that I had sent that letter, just so I could talk to him one last time.

 

At the risk of bragging, I received a letter just before Christmas. It was from a professor who was teaching one of my former students. He wrote me specifically to tell me that I had done a great job preparing this former student for his Chemistry course. He said he had never sent a letter like this, but felt compelled to do so after a semester with her in his class. It was typed, not handwritten, but the letter is still sitting on my coffee table. I can't stop re-reading it.

 

If he had E-mailed me, I would not have this reaction. I've gotten several great E-mails over the year, but I never felt the feeling I got like I did with this letter.

[The Major]

You have only to spend a bit of time away as I have recently in Afghanistan to realise the importance of a good letter, receiving them is a warming boost and writing them home is therapeutic and kills off a little time when it is going slow. My next plan is to get a waxing kit to really personalise my special letters, in reality this will just be the christmas cards mainly but on occasion it will be for other reasons

[stevesurf]

  On 12/18/2012 at 4:40 AM, XupengW said:

Since we have email and many Instant Messengers, hand writing becomes unnecessary to most people. However, the art of pen and the pleasure when you writing with a pen are irreplaceable.

 

Well said!

 

  On 12/21/2012 at 3:00 AM, Harlequin said:

  On 12/14/2012 at 5:38 AM, Harlequin said:

As I'm still looking for a job after being laid off earlier this year, I think I'll definitely be using my FP to write Thank You notes for after interviews from now on (that is, when and if I get any- it's been about 3 weeks since my last and that, I think anyway, was perfunctory as they'd obviously already decided). Maybe it will give me an edge, who knows?

 

I am very proud to say that using my Sheaffer Nononsense, I wrote and delivered two 'Thank You' notes today after a job interview I had around lunch time to the two people that conducted it. I don't know if they will make a difference, but I just feel really good that I followed through with it, especially since I was inspired to do it that way by this thread!

 

I really believe it will, with the more "classic" management style. It would with me and would be a more lasting impression than the email stalking that happens sometimes. It will absolutely set you apart, especially when you include something of further reading interest to the interviewer.

 

  On 2/5/2013 at 7:00 AM, The Major said:

You have only to spend a bit of time away as I have recently in Afghanistan to realise the importance of a good letter, receiving them is a warming boost and writing them home is therapeutic and kills off a little time when it is going slow. My next plan is to get a waxing kit to really personalise my special letters, in reality this will just be the christmas cards mainly but on occasion it will be for other reasons

 

 

Yes, you begin to really appreciate writing; it's so thoughtful when you receive a letter. It's also nice to see how thoughts get personalized as one writes and how others express themselves in their handwriting style. I hope you get many letters; thanks so much for your service.

[Harlequin]

  On 2/6/2013 at 1:41 AM, stevesurf said:

  On 12/21/2012 at 3:00 AM, Harlequin said:

  On 12/14/2012 at 5:38 AM, Harlequin said:

As I'm still looking for a job after being laid off earlier this year, I think I'll definitely be using my FP to write Thank You notes for after interviews from now on (that is, when and if I get any- it's been about 3 weeks since my last and that, I think anyway, was perfunctory as they'd obviously already decided). Maybe it will give me an edge, who knows?

I am very proud to say that using my Sheaffer Nononsense, I wrote and delivered two 'Thank You' notes today after a job interview I had around lunch time to the two people that conducted it. I don't know if they will make a difference, but I just feel really good that I followed through with it, especially since I was inspired to do it that way by this thread!

I really believe it will, with the more "classic" management style. It would with me and would be a more lasting impression than the email stalking that happens sometimes. It will absolutely set you apart, especially when you include something of further reading interest to the interviewer.

Well, that didn't actually prove helpful at all. But, it didn't stop me from doing it again just recently on some other 'Thank You' notes. Maybe these will help in getting a different outcome.

[Hehedragon]

After reading some of the comments above, I've decided to put a thought in, do we have to make a choice between fountain pen (handwriting, letters) and electronical devices(calls, emails, texts...). There are always people appreciating the past and accepting the future. Lets just embrace the fact!!

[rwilsonedn]

  On 2/6/2013 at 5:50 AM, Harlequin said:

  On 2/6/2013 at 1:41 AM, stevesurf said:

  On 12/21/2012 at 3:00 AM, Harlequin said:

  On 12/14/2012 at 5:38 AM, Harlequin said:

As I'm still looking for a job after being laid off earlier this year, I think I'll definitely be using my FP to write Thank You notes for after interviews from now on (that is, when and if I get any- it's been about 3 weeks since my last and that, I think anyway, was perfunctory as they'd obviously already decided). Maybe it will give me an edge, who knows?

I am very proud to say that using my Sheaffer Nononsense, I wrote and delivered two 'Thank You' notes today after a job interview I had around lunch time to the two people that conducted it. I don't know if they will make a difference, but I just feel really good that I followed through with it, especially since I was inspired to do it that way by this thread!

I really believe it will, with the more "classic" management style. It would with me and would be a more lasting impression than the email stalking that happens sometimes. It will absolutely set you apart, especially when you include something of further reading interest to the interviewer.

Well, that didn't actually prove helpful at all. But, it didn't stop me from doing it again just recently on some other 'Thank You' notes. Maybe these will help in getting a different outcome.

I wouldn't be so sure that the notes weren't helpful. Most people who get hired get the job through personal connections. Many job interviews happen after the manager has already selected the person they are going to hire, just because company policy requires an interview process.

It may be that people will remember the notes you gave them, and they may serve as a personal connection that will get you another interview down the road.

ron