Spam

Call me old fashioned, or just old, which seems to be a growingly common theme these days, but emails from students often make me cringe.

An uncle wrote me letter once when I was in school that made me want to cry (but I didn’t by the way). The letter wasn’t particularly sad or sentimental; though totally unexpected. It was just a mundane letter saying hi. What moved me was the language and style, beginning with “Ke hadapan anakanda...” Nobody writes that way anymore. Nobody wrote that way anymore. It was beautiful.

sir, regards to the total Carry mark dat u post tru online in myiium, dat mark is for what? cuz, u total it 60%..

Forget about the finer art of letter-writing. Business and formal correspondences from banks and government offices now are littered with glaring grammatical errors. Now, it seems, people can’t even write proper emails.

so, how about my mid term? sit for it or not?

In a letter, regardless of the form, each and every word properly written and spelled carries meaning, the whole composition of embodies the message both apparent and implied, all reflecting the writer. I wonder if the students writing these emails realize that they actually sound (or read) rather rude. Perhaps they do, and mean them so in the way people nowadays seem to confuse rudeness with assertiveness. Needless to say, such emails won’t get a reply from me.

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PS: I realize that I am beginning to sound like a broken record about the whole thing. Whatever.