IN REPLY TO YOURS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23009, 9 April 1938, Page 16 (Supplement)

IN REPLY TO YOURS

BEFOEE me lies a letter from somebody whose name appears to be either Bloodwhistle or Chattering—unless it is Snatchborough or Goolsmith. It might even be Bellwether or Tittlesnape, so completely illegible is the signature. Not that it matters, really, because the letter is merely a request I6r a contribution to a Home of Rest for the Indigent Aunts of Superannuated Grocers' Sundriesmen; a deserving enough cause, no doubt, but one that will have to carry on without any help from me, thanks to the high cost of socks and the tendency of tax collectors to turn nasty if provoked. I mention the matter, indeed, only because somebody of some eminence in scholastic circles has been commenting rather acidly on modern letter writing, saying that the majority of letters nowadays are not only unreadable and ungrammatical, but wrongly signed, frequently undated and altogether pretty awful. The art of letter writing, it appears, is decaying so rapidly that in a few years' time nobody will be able to read what anybody else has written, and vice versa. Sculptor's Cramp There is a good deal in that, as the bishop remarked when presenting the senior, churchwarden with a pipe of port. It cannot be denied that' the national standard of handwriting has deteriorated greatly since the Stone Age. Ink being then uninvented, the Briton of that far-off period wrote all his letteiß on slabs of stone with the help of a home-made chisel. Since it took him about a week ( to. dash off an 1.0.tJ. by this method, and a couple of months to compose a billet-doux, he took pains to make his meaning clear to the most casual glance, lest he should be compelled to do it all over again and develop sculptor's cramp. Time passed, as time will, and the chisel was superseded by the goosequill, somewhat to the annoyance of the lopal geese. As it is difficult to write quickly with a feather, handwriting remained fairly legible, notwithstanding the long " s," which caufed confiderable confufion when it waf firft introduced. The Love-letter A few years ago, however, some wellmeaning busybody, rootling about in the attic one wet Sunday afternoon, discovered the typewriter, the telephone and the greetings telegram; and from that moment the art of handwriting was doomed. For who will squander his substance on ink and risk incurring writer's cramp when he has only to reach for a telephone and shout what he has to say ? Moreover, the discovery of the typewriter led to the invention of the lesser blue-eyed stenographer; and any man \yorthy of the name would rather dictate his letters to a shapely blonde than write them laboriously by hand. Even the old-fashioned love-letter seems to be dying out. Not so long ago it was the habit of the love-lorn to. exchange thick wads of .impassioned At least three times a week.

By K. R. G. BROWNE Sketches by LUNT ROBERTS

to the benefit of the local stationer and the exasperation of the postman; but nowadays the tendency is to say it by telephone. (" Hullo 1 Hullo! I say, old thing, how about shoving up the banns? . .* . Pardon? . . . The dogs' home? Oh, sorry—wrong number.") From the masculine point of view this is all to the good, inasmuch as telephonic chit-chat cannot be tied up with pink ribbon and produced as evidence in Court. A Few Suggestions All this being sb, it would seem that the eminent scholar aforesaid has dealt the well-known nail a woundy buffet on the noggin, and that the art of handwriting will soon be as extinct as the crinoline, the curricle and the mottled, why-faced moth-snatcher (or Snodgrass' Seamew).

Letters, however, will continue to be exchanged by all classes, if only for business reasons; and in this connection I have a few thoughtful suggestions to offer, entirely free of charge. Don't thank me, however; it's a pleasure.

Firstly, I would draw the attention of all right thinkers—and of all lefthanders, too, if they are interested—to the absurd convention that bids us begin and end every letter on a note of almost fulsome cordiality, regardless of the subject-matter. For example:— Let us be Frank " Dear Mr. Poopendyke,

" The fact that I have the misfortune to live next door to you is no reason why your confounded dog—if it really is a dog, and not, as I am inclined to suspect, a cross between a jackal and a hyena—should use my herbaceous border as a bone-cemetery. You may expect, therefore, to hear shortly from my solicitors, Messrs. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Peabody.—Yours faithfully . . Idiotic, is it not? Frankly, Mr. Poopendyke is not at all dear to us, nor are we in the least his, either faithfully or otherwise. In such a case it would be more reasonable, surely, to begin: " Adjacent and abhorred Mr. Poopendyke, ' and finish " with every evil wish for Easter, from yours belligerently . . same way, when writing to'a collector of taxes to explain that, hav-

ing already plundered the nursery money-box anci pawned the pianola to satisfy his lust for gold, one can contribute nothing more at the moment toward the upkeep of the State, it is manifestly ridiculous to hail him as "Dear Sir." " Bloodsucking Sir," you like, or " Rapacious Bandit," or even ". Listen, you! —any of these would be a more suitable form of addrefes for a maq who cannot possibly be dear to anyone except his aged mother. Consider, again, those Government officials who allege themselves to bo "your obedient servant." Obedient ser-

vant my be-bunioned foot I Just ask 'em to jump through paper hoops or hand round the potatoes, and observe their reactions! I could continue in this strain for hours, to the irritation of all, were it not that I have some private correspondence to attend to. As if to illustrate this little thesis, the majority of the letters awaiting my attention begin: " Dear Sir, the enclosed account has now been outstanding ..." Hypocrites to a man, in 'other words. Oh, well, let's get it over. Miss Twinberry, take a letter, please. " Dear Sir . .