> > "Well, novelists could do it, no? "
Novels are narrative. They have dialogue, internal monologue, description, ancillary information --
"I dunno." He grimaced, as if he had tasted something
sour.
That sort of thing. Email has none of that. It's like conversation, except without body language and tone of voice. It's not even quite like pre-electronic letter-writing, which usually took place between people who knew each other in the 3D world. Even when that wasn't the case, there was usually a certain rather formal decorum that governed the interchange. Maybe even more to the point, there weren't a couple hundred other people reading the back-and-forth, as there are on email lists. Surely that changes something.
It's still so new, really. No doubt we'll get better either at conveying tone or adopting heuristics for dealing with uncertainty about tone. I have a few such. For example, when something seems extravagant or stupid, I tend to assume it's ironical, unless it's from someone I've already decided is really stupid. Or crazy. Or a Democrat.
Oddly enough, it's not hard to figure out that someone is stupid or crazed. One email might not do it, but six are conclusive. And one can diagnose a Democrat after six words.
--
Michael Smith mjs at smithbowen.net http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com
"Everyone has his favorite passage from the Theodosian Code." -- M I Finley