So said, T.S. Eliot's Sweeney. Somewhat prophetically, he hit on the perpetual dilemma of the web communicator. Whilst this rapid, borderless medium has some of the hallmarks of conversation, you can't see my expression (count yourself lucky), my posture, the way I stick my tongue out a little when thinking, or that strange thing I do with my right hand.
As if I didn't have enough on my plate, I have recently taken to clicking on the button on the top right of a Blogspot blog, optimistically labelled 'Next Blog'. It's fun entering other people's worlds, engaging with their views on life. Or at least it would be if the signal-to-noise ratio weren't so poor.
The first problem is how many blogs have a single entry, half complete, and dated when Adam were a boy. Thought of blogging and changed your mind? Fine, but please pick up your litter on the way out. Problem number two is the blogs which are just lists of links for marketing or traffic purposes. They're the blog equivalent of spamming in my book. Perhaps we should dub them blams or spogs.
But perhaps the biggest problem of all is people who refuse to use words and punctuation when they write. Is it really cool to leave out every clue to meaning and aid to readability? u mt thnk so...bt u no 2 me imnsho it jst sks. So I was amused to read Jennifer Garrett's excellent article
Eats, Blogs and Leaves. It's full of pearls of wisdom like:
It's time for a little tough love, people: Anyone who types in all lowercase needs to be taken out back and beaten. You are not e.e. cummings; you are not being "artistic." You're just too lazy to hit the shift key. If you can't be bothered with the extra keystroke, I can't be bothered to read your site.
Go girl! Fellow bloggers, when I read your blog there is a conduit between what I am reading and what you were writing. It's made up of words, grammar, punctuation, page design, and so on. The clearer you can make that conduit; the less congested by bad spelling, abbreviations, and dots, the more I can connect with you, and isn't that your goal?