The lost art of letter/email writing

[ainsworth74]

Prompted by the below:

It must be a thankless task having to go through complaints emails. I try to be reasonably polite and constructive but they must get a rather mixed bag. I was once shown a set of complaints to a local bus company and I would not have wanted to deal with some of them (downright rude, not actually saying what action they wanted and with absolutely no understanding of the reality of running commercial bus services).

The thing from the above that particularly struck me was the bit I've highlighted in bold. I've been struck by the poor quality of written communication that seems common when corresponding with companies or other organisations. I'm by no means perfect but I'm often taken aback by how difficult so many people seem to find written communication. Just the basics of putting a point across and succulently saying what they want/mean.

A recent example of this that I came across was a planning application on the local council website which garnered a number of responses the majority of which were just terrible. Not necessarily spelling and grammar wise but in formulation. It wasn't clear what the point of their message was (were they in favour or opposed?), why they were objecting (if they were), many of them were just rude and many weren't exactly putting a coherent argument (either way) forward.

So, is the art of letter/email writing specifically that related to communicating with organisations or companies a dying art? I was reflecting back on my school days and I can recall being given a little bit of training on writing a letter when we were doing our General Studies A-Level but I can't recall anything at GCSE (but that could be faulty memory it was fifteen odd years ago). I did go to University and get a degree in History but that wasn't exactly letter writing (but obviously essay writing requires a lot of the same skills just in long form!).

Is this stuff just not taught and we expect people to pick it up by osmosis? In which case should it be taught? It seems like it would be a useful skill being able to communicate clearly in writing!

Or am I just horribly out of touch?

 

[PaulMc7]

Prompted by the below:


The thing from the above that particularly struck me was the bit I've highlighted in bold. I've been struck by the poor quality of written communication that seems common when corresponding with companies or other organisations. I'm by no means perfect but I'm often taken aback by how difficult so many people seem to find written communication. Just the basics of putting a point across and succulently saying what they want/mean.

A recent example of this that I came across was a planning application on the local council website which garnered a number of responses the majority of which were just terrible. Not necessarily spelling and grammar wise but in formulation. It wasn't clear what the point of their message was (were they in favour or opposed?), why they were objecting (if they were), many of them were just rude and many weren't exactly putting a coherent argument (either way) forward.

So, is the art of letter/email writing specifically that related to communicating with organisations or companies a dying art? I was reflecting back on my school days and I can recall being given a little bit of training on writing a letter when we were doing our General Studies A-Level but I can't recall anything at GCSE (but that could be faulty memory it was fifteen odd years ago). I did go to University and get a degree in History but that wasn't exactly letter writing (but obviously essay writing requires a lot of the same skills just in long form!).

Is this stuff just not taught and we expect people to pick it up by osmosis? In which case should it be taught? It seems like it would be a useful skill being able to communicate clearly in writing!

Or am I just horribly out of touch?

I think part of it is down to how the world has been over the last 3-4 years due to Covid. There has been an incredible amount of emphasis on verbal communication with the likes of Zoom and Microsoft Teams being part of the daily lives of a lot of people therefore written communication is used a lot less meaning that people aren't as used to it.

Mistakes of course, are always possible as we are all human and not all educated to the same level. As someone with autism, I find that I make mistakes, don't pick up on them and when I am re-reading what I have written, I will then notice the mistakes.

Part of my business course in college involved focus on writing and how to communicate in the best way possible and I do feel like that in school, some focus should be put on a few classes for preparing students for communication in jobs and further education.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

I'm by no means perfect but I'm often taken aback by how difficult so many people seem to find written communication. Just the basics of putting a point across and succulently saying what they want/mean.

You probably have a valid point, but has "AutoCorrupt" struck again and did you actually intend to say 'succinctly' here?

 

[kristiang85]

I agree. But in a world where most peoples' written communication now is kept to less than 280 characters, you can see why the structured letter is dying out.

 

[ainsworth74]

You have a point, but did you intend to say succinctly here?

Well done you've spotted my deliberate mistake

I agree. But in a world where most peoples' written communication now is kept to less than 280 characters, you can see why the structured letter is dying out.

Sure that's certainly not helping but it seems that it remains an important skill, one which should be given more emphasis therefore?

 

[AdamWW]

A recent example of this that I came across was a planning application on the local council website which garnered a number of responses the majority of which were just terrible. Not necessarily spelling and grammar wise but in formulation. It wasn't clear what the point of their message was (were they in favour or opposed?), why they were objecting (if they were), many of them were just rude and many weren't exactly putting a coherent argument (either way) forward.

My favourite objection to planning permission was one arguing that it was in the interests of the builder in question to turn it down because he had no idea of how to work safely and was likely to kill or injure himself.

But getting back to the main point, I'm also surprised at how poorly written communications often are, even when written on behalf of an organisation.

It doesn't just extend to one-off communications - rules and regulations also seem to be sloppily written when there is no apparent need for it.

I like to think that I do better.

I don't know if things are worse than they were in the past, but if they are I suspect the ease with which one can bash out an email/tweet etc. as opposed to sitting down to handwrite a letter or even get a typewriter out might have something to do with it.

Sure that's certainly not helping but it seems that it remains an important skill, one which should be given more emphasis therefore?

I think it should be an important skill.

There is a danger I think that just as spelling checkers can result in writing with correctly spelled words but not necessarily the right ones, we will end up with people using language models like ChatGPT to produce something which is written with impeccable grammer but doesn't actually come very close to saying what's intended.

At least at the moment a badly written message gives us a clue that we probably shouldn't treat the contents with too much respect.

 

[Lost property]

I would suggest, that, the title of this thread has a close correlation with the one about the evolution of the English language.

Formal letters do still exist as does formal text in reports (to offer but two obvious examples) but, given the many sources that influence the English language, advertising in particular at times, plus expediency on the part of many trying to construct a letter in the first place, then it's almost inevitable there will be a deterioration in the standards of formal letter writing

 

[urbophile]

There's a parallel too with the other thread. Just as language, and the use of vocabulary, inevitably evolves, so that 'gay' for example doesn't mean what it did 60 years ago or so; so writing styles and conventions evolve and few people, apart from Jacob Rees-Mogg, use convoluted Victorian syntax. But in both cases we need to be alert for inaccuracy, and language used – deliberately or not – to obscure. 'Disinterested' for 'uninterested' for example. Or punctuation: the notorious example being 'eats, shoots and leaves.'

 

[david1212]

First depending if using an offline platform e.g. Outlook, Thunderbird or online e.g. Gmail, Yahoo formatting a formal letter as an email can be more difficult than in e.g. Word or Libre Office Writer plus depending on the platform that the recipient uses they may not see the same or at least similar structure.

Second many are using a smartphone not a desktop or laptop computer.

Third even if the recipient and hence responder is in the UK English may not be their first language and any formal education / training may be limited with the potential issues of not correctly fully interpreting the details sent and not wording their reply so as unambigiously understood.

Regardless I hope schools are still teaching formal letter writing both the layout and aiming to include all the revelent information while keeping the letter concise.

 

[WAB]

Letter and email writing in a variety of situations was certainly taught very thoroughly to me from primary school to GCSEs. I was even taught how to format letters on a typewriter (this was in 2011, I might add!) If people don't know how write properly, it's not because it's not in the modern curriculum...

There are fewer times when you need to write in long prose. Forums and email groups, which I remember being pretty popular when I was very young, have waned in popularity. RailUK is a bit of an outlier these days; most people use Facebook groups or similar, which are more suited to short messages than long text posts, particularly in reply. In day-to-day life, we by-and-large text our friends rather than send long emails, letters or postcards; we comment on the BBC News Instagram account rather than write in to the editor of the Times; we fill in more forms than send off written requests.

By and large, we are out of practice and it does show. It's not always easy to understand the meaning of peoples' messages and letters - they are almost incoherent sometimes.

 

[Giugiaro]

There are many ways to look at this issue. I'm going to write according to what I have experienced myself:

I've been struck by the poor quality of written communication that seems common when corresponding with companies or other organisations. (...)
Just the basics of putting a point across and succulently saying what they want/mean.

I've noticed this being a big problem with most people.
I had a swing at correcting a co-worker's e-mail to one of our suppliers, and the message was incredibly bloated.
I removed half of the writing, got straight to the point, and listed our specifications.

Today it became essential to ditch all the humble writing standards from postal letters when writing an e-mail.
Say strictly what you want, without being rude.

With tens, if not hundreds, of e-mails showering daily on companies and individuals, getting your point across is fundamental to avoid people ignoring your messages.

A recent example of this that I came across was a planning application on the local council website which garnered a number of responses the majority of which were just terrible.
Not necessarily spelling and grammar wise but in formulation.
It wasn't clear what the point of their message was (were they in favour or opposed?), why they were objecting (if they were), many of them were just rude and many weren't exactly putting a coherent argument (either way) forward.

It's a common trait that is usually found in newspaper comments.
People go insane when angry and write in a very erratic way.
And the point is generally lost in their rage.

So, is the art of letter/email writing specifically that related to communicating with organisations or companies a dying art?
I was reflecting back on my school days and I can recall being given a little bit of training on writing a letter when we were doing our General Studies A-Level but I can't recall anything at GCSE (but that could be faulty memory it was fifteen odd years ago).
I did go to University and get a degree in History but that wasn't exactly letter writing (but obviously essay writing requires a lot of the same skills just in long form!).

I remember my High School Portuguese teacher saying that it was common to see engineering and medical students being downright atrocious with their writing, as language becomes a third thought as you progress further into your scientific area.
Universities and companies don't think teaching the mother tongue is necessary for higher education and work. The rigour in writing is then lost with time.
This also applies to oral communication, as well as to contact in a foreign language.

Is this stuff just not taught and we expect people to pick it up by osmosis? In which case should it be taught? It seems like it would be a useful skill being able to communicate clearly in writing!

As I said, learning the mother tongue is essential for producing good written and spoken communication.
This is also one of the reasons tools like Grammarly are heavily advertised. (I admit to using Grammarly while writing this reply, but I don't use their premium version).

I also think the basics of argumentation and philosophy are lost or entirely ignored by most people.
I don't know how it is in the UK, but philosophy and argumentation are taught late and for just two years in Portugal.
Students usually find Philosophy too cumbersome. And it doesn't help that they already have to deal with mammoth subjects like Chemistry, Physics, Maths and Biology.

Or am I just horribly out of touch?

You're not. That's why this is an internet meme.

 

[cb a1]

My Dad's side of the family owned a farm from 1679 till my Grandma sold it 300 years later. I've ended up with all the deeds and wills that had been kept over the generations.
The original sale document is signed in incredible copperplate like script by one of my ancestors. By a century later though, most of the documents signed by his descendants are simply an X.
My Dad was a pretty clever man. Started out as a farmhand but ended up a successful salesman and company director. He could read no problem, good with numbers, was good at crosswords, but when it came to writing ... my Mum had to help him write all his letters.
When he was in his late 60s, he went with my brother on a trek in the Himalayas. He wrote about it when he returned - was one of the last things he wrote before he died of cancer a couple of years later. Fascinating story, but he really really needed a good editor!
I'm no great shakes, but, his children (including me) are all far more skilled writers than he was.
As for the next generations ... I don't know - I've not seen what they write beyond social media updates.

 

[PeterY]

I was taught 50+ years ago how a letter should be wrote at school. Name and address at the top etc. I can't remember the last time I wrote a formal letter but I remember the skills I'd learnt, should I have to write one.

When e mails came along the were no rules on how to write them. When I wrote a letter it would start "dear xxx". With e mail, I tend to start "Hi" from the recipient and sender, which seems to have started on day 1 of e mail usage.

 

[John Webb]

.....I remember my High School Portuguese teacher saying that it was common to see engineering and medical students being downright atrocious with their writing, as language becomes a third thought as you progress further into your scientific area.....

Interesting that engineering students are mentioned. I did a degree in Physics, and clarity of expression needed to report one's work was strongly emphasised to us on the grounds it was pointless doing the work if no one could understand your report! I would thought the same needed to apply to engineering work as well.
I appreciate too that my experiences may differ from you, but on the medical side I've seen a welcome change over the decades in the UK. This has seen medical information become increasingly clearly expressed and a much greater willingness by medical staff to explain what the problem is!

 

[AlterEgo]

I was taught 50+ years ago how a letter should be wrote at school.

Written, even. (Sorry!)

 

[Hadders]

I was taught how to write proper letters both at school, and as part of a junior management training scheme at the start of my career.

In a previous role I had to deal with grievances and disciplinary appeals. Many of the lettersto me sent were appalling written, and I don't just mean spelling and grammar. Often they weren't set out logically, lacked clarity and didn't say what outcome they were seeking. I ended up spending far too much time clarifying what they were attempting to say in their letter, rather than getting to the root cause of the issue.

So frustrating.

 

[ABB125]

I always try to write coherently and logically, although I do have a tendency to waffle a bit at times! The same cannot be said of a lot of people I know, unfortunately...

 

[Magdalia]

I was taught 50+ years ago how a letter should be wrote at school.

This reminds me of the Morecambe and Wise Show. A running gag in most shows was Ernie saying "the play what I wrote".

Clearly most of the audience were expected to know enough about how to write good English in order to get this as a joke.

I remember my High School Portuguese teacher saying that it was common to see engineering and medical students being downright atrocious with their writing, as language becomes a third thought as you progress further into your scientific area.
Universities and companies don't think teaching the mother tongue is necessary for higher education and work. The rigour in writing is then lost with time.

I look back on my education and regard my decisions to do geography at A Level and some economics at University as very valuable for maintaining my written communication skills.

But I learned more about grammar in French lessons that I ever did in English lessons. I'd go as far as to say that the only useful thing for me from trying to learn a foreign language was learning grammar.

 

[Lucan]

Interesting that engineering students are mentioned. I did a degree in Physics, and clarity of expression needed to report one's work was strongly emphasised to us on the grounds it was pointless doing the work if no one could understand your report! I would thought the same needed to apply to engineering work as well.

It certainly does. I took an engineering degree and English was one of the lecture courses involved. I guess I spent 40% of my engineering career writing, 20% of it reading, and 10% of it talking; only the remainder was engineering calculation and analysis. It does depend on what level you reach. With promotion, some of my writing needed to be almost legalese, being negotiation with the government regulators of my industry, and there was no room for any possible ambiguity or unintended nuance, let alone basic spelling or grammatical errors.

 

[Royston Vasey]

Every time I write a considered and well-structured email, in high quality English, that is longer than a few sentences, I get told by my uneducated bogan of a manager that it's an "essay". Nobody has the patience or discipline to read proper communications these days, let alone write them.

 

[Dai Corner]

I was taught how to write a proper letter at school in the 1960s and 70s, and gained much experience writing thousands of them as part of my office job in the 1980s. Many of the ones I had to respond to were barely understandable and my standard draft started "I understand that...." followed by what I thought they were asking us to do.

Then came computerisation and automatically generated letters made up from standard paragraphs with infills taken from a database. At first we edited these if they didn't make sense or flow properly but later on this was deemed unnecessary and they went out without being read by a human. It was assumed that the recipient would come back and ask again if we hadn't answered their questions. In parallel with this, internal communication switched to email and gradually became more informal, down to text message level in some cases. (O)

These days my style depends on the situation but I think forums such as this are perhaps the last bastion of formal English outside professional writing.

 

[AdamWW]

At first we edited these if they didn't make sense or flow properly but later on this was deemed unnecessary and they went out without being read by a human. It was assumed that the recipient would come back and ask again if we hadn't answered their questions.

That explains a lot!

 

[John Webb]

It certainly does. I took an engineering degree and English was one of the lecture courses involved. I guess I spent 40% of my engineering career writing, 20% of it reading, and 10% of it talking; only the remainder was engineering calculation and analysis. It does depend on what level you reach. With promotion, some of my writing needed to be almost legalese, being negotiation with the government regulators of my industry, and there was no room for any possible ambiguity or unintended nuance, let alone basic spelling or grammatical errors.

Interesting that you had to deal with regulators - I was in the Government's Fire Research station and several matters I dealt with in my later years ended up in changes to legislation, hopefully to make life safer. But this meant reports needed to be as clear as possible, particularly so that politicians and non-specialist civil servants could understand what our results showed and why we were suggesting what might be possibly be improved.
Likewise tests run for outside firms needed clear and concise reports. (Partly to explain the cost of them!) These were also other constraints, often of time, in this sort of work. Made one's mind concentrate wonderfully!

 

[westv]

These days my style depends on the situation but I think forums such as this are perhaps the last bastion of formal English outside professional writing.

Bro, cu wiv that. Frums wizz bang innit. Nu txt hr.

 

[The exile]

First depending if using an offline platform e.g. Outlook, Thunderbird or online e.g. Gmail, Yahoo formatting a formal letter as an email can be more difficult than in e.g. Word or Libre Office Writer plus depending on the platform that the recipient uses they may not see the same or at least similar structure.

Second many are using a smartphone not a desktop or laptop computer.

Third even if the recipient and hence responder is in the UK English may not be their first language and any formal education / training may be limited with the potential issues of not correctly fully interpreting the details sent and not wording their reply so as unambigiously understood.

Regardless I hope schools are still teaching formal letter writing both the layout and aiming to include all the revelent information while keeping the letter concise.

There is a vast difference between the type of text produced by a non-native speaker and the kind of drivel being referred to above. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the overlap between the two is tiny.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Bro, cu wiv that. Frums wizz bang innit. Nu txt hr.

Bro, WTF?!

 

[3141]

Interesting that you had to deal with regulators - I was in the Government's Fire Research station and several matters I dealt with in my later years ended up in changes to legislation, hopefully to make life safer. But this meant reports needed to be as clear as possible, particularly so that politicians and non-specialist civil servants could understand what our results showed and why we were suggesting what might be possibly be improved.
Likewise tests run for outside firms needed clear and concise reports. (Partly to explain the cost of them!) These were also other constraints, often of time, in this sort of work. Made one's mind concentrate wonderfully!

I had somewhat similar experiences, working in a local government education department. In order to persuade councillors that something needed to be done it was essential to set out the circumstances, the needs and the recommendations clearly, straightforwardly and in a logical order. That probably remains the case in similar situations.

A further consideartion is that if you are managing resources, whether they are publicly or privately owned, there is a responsibility to assist those responsible for making decisions to have the best possible understanding.

But a lot of communication today, or a higher proportion of it perhaps, is done informally, by email or on a mobile phone. A mobile's keyboard is not a suitable means of presenting complex or sustained discussion. There are always some people who will say "it doesn't matter, as long as we know what he meant even if he didn't say it properly". But something which isn't expressed clearly and accurately is at greater risk of being misunderstood. In fact, the attitude "but does it really matter?" has developed over several decades, encouraged by the media whenever (for example) a school insists on certain standards and a parent grumbles that their child should have to....whatever it might be.

 

[Giugiaro]

A mobile's keyboard is not a suitable means of presenting complex or sustained discussion. There are always some people who will say "it doesn't matter, as long as we know what he meant even if he didn't say it properly".

This has been an enormous issue.

WhatsApp messaging was the biggest trigger behind the Alexandra Reis case in Portugal.
The minister for planning and infrastructure simply replied "OK" to a five hundred thousand Euro compensation proposal to an ex-TAP Air Portugal executive.
When the scandal became public, the minister couldn't remember giving the green light to the proposal, mostly because of the informal and out-of-breath pace enshrined into Portuguese politics made such an important issue just casually slip by.

I also hate when someone contacts me through WhatsApp for work. They always write like they're furious and in a hurry, and I can't tell if they are joking or threatening me.

 

[John Webb]

One reason I took early retirement in the late 1990s was the increasing use of e-mails for internal communications, even by a senior person in an office 10 yards or less away from my office. I always found I got more and better work out of my small team by speaking with them face-to-face every day as needed, then confirming in a note what we'd agreed on. But perhaps I'm straying from the original topic....

 

[WAB]

One reason I took early retirement in the late 1990s was the increasing use of e-mails for internal communications, even by a senior person in an office 10 yards or less away from my office. I always found I got more and better work out of my small team by speaking with them face-to-face every day as needed, then confirming in a note what we'd agreed on. But perhaps I'm straying from the original topic....

It's worse now with Teams messages - good luck finding what has been said before! Some people also seem allergic to quickly picking up the phone and having a chat, and prefer a flurry of Teams text messages instead taking thrice as long.