IS THERE A PROTOCOL FOR ONLINE WRITING, STYLE AND GRAMMAR?

IS THERE A PROTOCOL FOR ONLINE WRITING, STYLE AND GRAMMAR?

The subject has been tossed around much over the years that we have experienced the internet boom. The internet is without doubt  the largest river of human communication.  Hipsters and Gamers, Textors and Emailers, Bloggers and Videographers will all have a different answer for the basic question, “What is the appropriate grammatical standard for internet communications”?

Whether communicating in person, writing a letter or over the internet you should always take time to execute properly composed correspondence.  A gentleman who expects to be respected no matter what context he is in and who enjoys expressing himself in a smart, eloquent and effective manner will easily equip himself with this advice.  An intelligent man understands how to manage colloquialisms, especially those which appear to be mainstreamed by popular culture but which nonetheless fall short of qualifying as “Standard English”.  Typos, misspelled words, and simple grammatical errors speak as much to the kind of care a man has put into ones message as it does the kind of response, if any, he may ultimately expect.  Remember that although you may feel that you and your audience is more relaxed, you cannot control who will ultimately view media authored by you once it has been published in cyberspace.  I have never promoted any form of paranoia or self-deprecation related to externally loaded opinions of self, I am concerned that a man’s opinion of himself will serve to motivate him to choose the path of excellence regardless of how others might opine. 

It is my opinion that there are two vastly different categories of internet communication, the first being Formal, business e-communications and the second being informal e-communications.  Obviously the rules will vary between them but they are both bound to the simple principles of standard, proper and effective communication. 

For formal communications, i.e. business related and even some personal contacts one should straightway equip themself with Standard English grammar and this always includes these simple guidelines:

·         Always compose your correspondence on word or some other word processing program.

·         Always utilise spell and grammar check prior to sending out any document.

·         Always proof read your document especially before posting online in a group or as a formal response to an ad or post.  Spell check is not always infallible. 

·         Never publish a rough-draft or technically troubled media unless it is for instructional purposes.  And if so always clearly identify the media as a “rough draft” or as an “example”; always be sure to clearly identify the instructional purpose it is intended to serve.

For informal communications proper spelling and grammar should not ever be abandoned!  If one is going to abbreviate a word the proper standard abbreviation should be used but it is always much better to clearly express ones intentions using the finest English style possible.  The worst kind of internet experience is one where the author has so abbreviated, his message with slang, and other colloquialisms that it is rendered virtually unintelligible to any who are not included in his exoteric group of friends.  Remember first and foremost the purpose of communication is to effectively communicate!  When readers cannot identify with an abbreviated or abstracted concept they cannot possible read your mind or consult a dictionary, so they will never have a chance to understand what you, in your infinite wisdom intended them to comprehend.  Informal guidelines are:

·         Always compose your correspondence on word or some other word processing program.

·         Always utilise spell and grammar check prior to sending out any document.

·         Always proof read your document especially before posting online in a group especially in response to an ad or post.  Spell check is not always infallible. 

·         Never publish a rough-draft or technically troubled media without clearly identifying it as such and explaining its intent.

·         Remember that even if the post or subject you are responding to is informal proper grammar and syntax is always important.

Many readers are ticked off when they are looking for detail but get assaulted with what appears to be obscure generalities.  Take your topic of discussion seriously and sell it eloquently!  Here is a bad example of Internet communication:

“K den u bes b get’n ova here bro one.”  Or “Naw pa Aaight dats whuzzup!”  

While both of these responses are give some basic comprehensible information they will be frustrating to someone who has taken time to compose a well written response, he will feel that you did not take him seriously and that you did not take time to address him appropriately.  Also a gentleman must be careful that his written communications are age-appropriate!  For example:

TEXT, POST OR EMAIL SENT BY OTHERS:  “Hello Bruce, it’s me, Maurice; the weather has been so wonderful today that I have decided to come into town and will most likely be in your area.  I will have a college buddy of mine with me, his name is Oscar and I do not believe you have met him before.  I certainly would not want to impose on you so please let me know if you would like to meet or receive us today.  We plan to be in your area around 12:30 P.M. and I will be driving”.

RESPONSE #1:  “K, cool man just let me know.”

PROPER RESPONSE #1:  “Hello Maurice, I am so pleased that you and Oscar will be visiting today and except for the fact that I do have an appointment with my automobile mechanic at 12:15 I would have lunch already grilling on the deck when you pulled up at 12:30.  If you can manage to wait for me to join you around 1:30 I’m sure you can just park at my house and we can all have a late lunch at Reajohn’s Barbecue Shack downtown.  If you can manage to arrive by 11:30 I will be glad to let you both relax at my place, you know my bar is always fully stocked and open or if you chose you can just hang out until we meet at my house.  By the way my address has not changed, it is 1527 North Suttler Place.  Please R.S.V.P.”

The first proper response was the more gentlemanly of the two and as such, the only proper one a gentleman would allow.  It acknowledges the receipt of his friends invitation to visit and also suggests a structured arrangement for coordinating the timing while the first response leaves these guests hanging in cyberspace.  Even though the best laid plans may go amiss the second set of plans has the best possibility of success.  Important also is the fact that the second response did not assume that the guests knew or remembered the correct address, an important factor in these days of personal navigation systems. 

The second message and response is for communication between two people who have just met online.  Tired, one word responses indicate a lack of interest or enthusiasm.  While one will not be expected to write a virtual novel it is nonetheless important to demonstrate some attempt to communicate facts and data that cannot otherwise be ascertained due to the displacement of the internet.

TEXT, POST OR EMAIL SENT BY OTHERS:  “Hello man, I just read your ad and checked-out your pictures; I was so impressed by them all.  I was pleased to find that we share many of the same hobbies and interests one of which is fine dining.  I am a “foodie” from way back and have always fancied I’d have a buddy to share my passion for food who would be company for me at the other side of the table.  By the way my real name is Butchie”.

RESPONSE #1:  “O.K. cool dude, so what’s good?”

PROPER RESPONSE #1:  “Pleased to meet you Butchie, my name is Bryant and I really appreciate your complements.  I am responding to you as much in awe of you as you are of me.  I think you are a handsome and intelligent brotha and I can see that we will have much in common not only with respect to food.  I was attracted to you and therefore your ad as soon I saw it.  I noticed that you are an avid baseball and football fan.  I have been collecting sports memorabilia since I was a kid and recently inherited my grandfather’s extensive sports memorabilia collection.  I look forward to discussing it over dinner sometime in the near future.  I am actually out of town until next Wednesday so I suggest that we chat while I am away to get a sense of each other and if all seems well by the weekend we should definitely make plans to meet face to face by Thursday or over the weekend. “

PROPER RESPONSE #2 “Please allow me to thank you for your complements Butchie, they are well received.  Let me also take this time to complement you as I see you are a very handsome and intelligent man.  I would like to politely decline your gracious invitation but again I thank you for what appears to be an honest complement.  Butchie let me conclude our correspondence by wising you the very best of luck in all endeavors as it appears you are a true gentleman and will make someone a very happy man”.   

If someone is gracious enough to give you a complement you as a gentleman must also take appropriate space to thank them.  If the complement is of a sexual nature then you must also thank them but if you are have not intention to take them up on their offer you must, as a gentleman, politely find some distinguishing quality of theirs to return the complement and then politely decline their invitation.  A gentleman is always transparent about his feelings, so if you are not interested find a polite way to communicate this.  Never send a rude or condescending response even if you are thoroughly disgusted by the person who complements and approaches you!  Even if you receive a rude or threatening response when the person discovers you are not interested find a polite word to discontinue the conversation and do not return any more correspondence to that person.  If the person persists then you might have to report them or block them but never stoop to base or ungentlemanly deportment even if you have clearly been disrespected. 

Whether communicating in person, writing a letter or over the internet you should always take time to execute properly composed correspondence.  Even when writing correspondence of admonishment one should always use proper grammatical form.  In life we will always use informal structure especially with close friends and family and this is both natural and acceptable.  Written correspondence should be fun and even when it is not it should be clear and well written.  History has preserved letters dating back many thousands of years.  Reading them today has allowed our generation a window into the past.  Think about this whenever you write.  Your writings may be preserved for posterity without you ever knowing it.  If they are to be read hundreds or even thousands of years from now I am sure you would want them to be clear and well composed.

So to answer the question posed by this article, “IS THERE A PROTOCOL FOR ONLINE WRITING STYLE AND GRAMMAR”?  the answer is unequivocally, Yes!  There has always been and will always be an overriding protocol and that is proper English!  Fads, Styles, Movements, all come and go with the wind.  A gentleman knows how to distinguish them and himself from them in the manner of his correspondence.  He understands that simply because something is currently in fashion does not make it credible…  A gentleman’s writing style takes years to develop, at some point he is confident with his command of the language or languages he knows and begins to take the skill of writing to a higher level of artistic expression.  That is the second nature that I am invoking in you…

FIN

Written by D. Vollin.

www.forthebrothas.blogspot.com  

WHAT TO DO IN CASE OF FIRE?

Breaking the chain of the transatlantic slave trade.

In just about every public building in these United States there is a common protocol for an emergency involving a fire.  When I was a kid in school there was always a notification posted in the hallways, stairways, in places of assembly and just outside of the elevators that read,

“What To Do In Case Of Fire?”

There was a list of instructions following this question all providing guidance for those who might be caught in what could be the most challenging moment of their lives…

Freedman and southerners argue over work contracts and wages during reconstruction.

For as long as I can remember the Black American Community has been in such a predicament! We have been under fire, we have been living in a burning house threatening our very existence but this fire has not been the textbook chemical combustion we studied in high school physics, it has been the continual threat of racism!  Racism is the fire that Black Americans must fight daily, we must wake up to it, we inhale its toxic smoke we feel the singe of its caustic heat, we experience the challenge it poses to our dignity and public image… we are a peoples who are constantly threatened with destruction by fire!  Growing up I remember my father’s famous saying he coined when I was a young boy.  I cannot count the times he has proclaimed this truth such that without any effort I can quote him here:

“WE BASK ON THE SEA OF APATHY AS WE SLOWLY DROWN IN THE FLOOD

OF INSTITUTIONALIZED RACISM!”

As a man of 50 years the prophetic words of my father stand out as undeniable truth!  I am awed by their clarity, their elegance of expression  so real evoking a balance of complexity and simplicity…

I find it most interesting that Black Americans can be so docile and naïve in the face of racism.  They expect it and understand it because they have gotten used to it.  Its effects outwardly appear to have been neutralized because they no longer fear it, they expect it and they know it. Black Americans simply find creative ways to transcend racism and move on. 

Black hotel workers were fired from this late 1880's hotel due to racial pressure.  Their jobs were then given to white workers.

But this is only a façade, it is no real solution at all because of the economic helplessness of the black community it does not matter if racism is feared or not it is a calculated inevitability.  Racism has been refined to a colorless, odorless poison that Black Americans consume at unawares through the consequence of poverty and ignorance and lack of empowerment; they don’t even recognize it when it comes fully robed to their door… 

For others who have had a better chance at beating the odds but find they have fallen victim to their own apathy and vanity blaming their woes on racism is a gross, ungentlemanly and cowardly claim.   For example, the saga encountered by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was a circus insulting to those whose lives were claimed by shameful sport of lynching.  In truth, the Black American community should have forced him to retract his spurious claim likening his media interrogation to a “Modern Day Lynching.”

We do not fear racism any longer the way we do not fear a cold or the loss of a loved one… we have become accustomed to racism… we accept it and accommodate it in our daily lives because we do not expect it to ever go away and because we do not know any other reality…  Because Black men are not stolen away in the night as they were before to be found in a riven, decapitated smoldering mass swinging from a tree in the morning we think that lynching has died.  But every time a black man is incarcerated, stripped of his citizenship, his right to vote and his right to freedom this episode plays itself out again and again and again.  We cannot leave a black man blameless if he falls into the traps of racism!  We must admit that it is a trap he should know well, he can see it and yet he walks directly into its jaws.  We have become blind and careless in the face of racism cursing the white man for setting traps we are foolish enough to walk inside of.  Clearly we have become numbed by racism.  Racism imbibed in gradual doses from adolescence to adulthood has built up our immune system to its threat, not to it its effects.  The result is that we have dropped our defenses, left the battlements unmanned.  In my father’s words again:

“WE BASKED ON THE SEA OF APATHY AS WE SLOWLY DROWNED IN THE FLOOD

OF INSTITUTIONALIZED RACISM!”

Unfortunately the same cannot be said for racists… they are empathically paralyzed against those they perceive as enemies and philosophically motivated to harm them through racism, they are interminably locked in a closed box of anger and hatred from which they will never mature except in the amplification of their hatred for those they deem inferior.   In them racism is creative and tireless… ignoring them is only a sweet invitation for them to impose even greater stresses upon us… They hate everyone who is not them, they do not respect Black Americans or anything that race has achieved!  They delight in the pain and suffering of those who cannot or will not defend themselves against their insane and unwarranted psychosis… they feel entitled to do so by reducing other races to the level of sub-human existence… racism is a sickness similar to that of a rapist, a child molester, a serial killer… The lust and hunger racists have for evil is nearly inexorable.  But because it it ultimately mortal we know it can be assuaged and even cured.

The League Of Revolutionary Black Workers fought for union rights of Black and White employees in  the  Detroit  automobile factories.

The only defense against racism is to be consistently strong and organized. Those who seek to fight racism must meet it peacefully with a clear show of strength at all fronts challenging it in ways that will not allow its cancer to bear fruit!  But to do this takes organization, solidarity, cohesiveness, cooperation, family, brotherhood, charity, sensibility, community, ethics, all of the characteristics that drugs, ignorance, incarceration and other factors have stolen from the black community since the late 1960’s to the present.    Many Black Americans gave up the sanctity of their hard-bought communities to drug dealers, thugs, criminals, prostitutes, hustlers, and murderers who turned them into cesspools of fear and despair.  Lacking any hope or direction of their own they forcefully denied everyone else the right to peaceful self-determination in effect carrying out the primary directive of the very racists who cursed their existence and doubted their ability escape the clutch of the racists noose.

These Black workers in a northern factory at the turn of the century were paid equal wages to the guild workers.

In the end the greatest challenge of the black community at large and Black Americans in specific is not to allow the depravity and hatred so typical of racism to pervert us.  We must not imitate racism by imposing the same bias against other human beings.  We must not begrudge other races from enjoying the fruits of America.  We of all should know better.  The weight falls upon us to set the example for decent folk to follow.  We must be the bigger man!   We must not serve back the same bitterness as we are served by racists.  Our legacy of struggle in America shows that we can achieve success through peaceful and intellectual solidarity.  The time to unite to effect positive change is not when our civil rights are being threatened because the vigil and battle for peace and freedom is a never ending battle.  We must stop blaming our fate on the white man an on racism because we have the power to overcome racism and live in harmony with all races.  All white men are not enemies! Together we both fought and died for racial equality in America.  Now it is time for the Black community to wake up and take full responsibility for itself!  Yes, racism exists but it is powerless in the face of determination and unity.  What the black community must do is to take a good hard honest look at itself and do the hard work of repair and rejuvenation. 

 The first step is taking responsibility for our own deeds!  The second step is identifying the obstacles to our social and economic progress.  The third step is identifying clear goals and objectives toward rebuilding our communities and families, our economic and social networks.  The fourth step is developing a plan to implement these goals and objectives.  The fifth step is galvanizing ourselves to implement the goals and objectives establishing stable and sustainable think-tanks to assist in the universal task of realizing these plans.  The sixth step is to establish a coherent system to monitor the development and growth of community, social and economic programming utilising our think-tanks to develop policy and strategy for the future.  The seventh step is to devise a way to ensure that the established network remains culturally relevant and responsive to social and economic trends and remains sufficiently decentralized that it cannot be overly institutionalized; that it does not become invested in its own preservation at the expense of natural, positive evolution. 

So if anyone ever asks what to do in case of fire you can tell them that the fire has already been burning and is now in danger of totally consuming the house, the yard, the neighborhood and the business district; all that is held dear.  Tell them that this fire is easy to put out, it requires that Black Americans wake up and blame no one but themselves for their current predicament!  Tell them that all we have to do is to stop:

BASKING ON THE SEA OF APATHY AS WE SLOWLY DROWN IN THE FLOOD

OF INSTITUTIONALIZED RACISM!”

FIN

Written by David Vollin (Son) and William Vollin (Father)