Communications Pandemic

Some years ago, employees of Canada Post went on strike, and mail ceased to be delivered. Terry Garner, with whom I then shared an office, sighed wistfully and said, "Now if only the phones would go out, too."

A few years later, they did, but by that time, it was too late; communications technology had spread like an invincible electronic virus.  First came the fax machine.  Fellow word arranger Ian Alexander lamented, "We used to be able to say 'I'm about to put the copy in the mail,' and that would give us two or three more days to begin writing it.  Now people say 'Just fax it right now.'"

And the fax machine, soon to be as forgotten as the typewriter, was only the beginning.  E-mail followed, and now we have Facebook and Twitter and Tweet.  

Further to this, we are told (warned) that electronic communications never vanish, they are out there forever.  Gone are the days when one could say "Burn all my letters!"  This is good news only for biographers and people tracking possible lawsuits.  The CBC's Tom Allen, commenting on this unsuspected technological phenomenon, said it should give pause to anyone who, at some hour past midnight, having consumed a cask or two of wine, decides it would be a swell idea to e-mail an old flame.

I would be among the first to say that e-mail is a marvelously enabling development in the history of communication, much advanced from clay tablets and papyrus scrolls.  But, at the same time, one must recognize that chipping out cuneiform letters on stone does provide time for sober second thoughts.