Oddly, all but one of those ASCII art samples include non-ASCII characters — I see box-drawing characters (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box-drawing_characters) — which means that in the era of this book, they wouldn't have been a good choice for email: there'd have been a high risk of recipients seeing gibberish. (Though I guess back then we were more used to all kinds of email formatting problems, so maybe that risk was considered acceptable?)
“improves productivity”, "flattens corporate hierarchies", “enables people to circumvent many of the inefficiencies of the office place” are all in reference to the technologies that preceded email: written memos. Memos that were written (possibly on a typewriter), copied, and then distributed to something like corporate mailboxes or pigeonholes. Compared to the blizzard of paper that made up corporate life before the email life, I'd say that yeah, email improved productivity and circumvented many inefficiencies of the office place. w/r/t flattening hierarchies, it was a novel notion that you (an employee, possibly a customer) could email an executive of a company directly — again, what were the odds that you could successfully send a memo to Lee Iacocca or Thomas J. Watson.
I love that you dusted off Strunk and White. I've had a paperback copy on my shelf for years, right next to William Zinsser's On Writing Well. They've kept each other company for decades.
I know. But I have a soft spot for WZ. It reminds me of being in my twenties, dead sure that I wanted be a writer, and taking what he had to say very seriously. It was actually Bill Moyers who gave me the WZ book to begin with when, as a naive 22 year old, I went to him for advice on how to "be a writer." Life took me in many different directions, but the book and the memory of that younger self live on.
Oddly, all but one of those ASCII art samples include non-ASCII characters — I see box-drawing characters (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box-drawing_characters) — which means that in the era of this book, they wouldn't have been a good choice for email: there'd have been a high risk of recipients seeing gibberish. (Though I guess back then we were more used to all kinds of email formatting problems, so maybe that risk was considered acceptable?)
Man, I could have used a bozo filter today!
I miss that hyphen.
I actually sent a friend an ASCII image in an e-mail recently! He thought it was super cool (and it was!)
“improves productivity”, "flattens corporate hierarchies", “enables people to circumvent many of the inefficiencies of the office place” are all in reference to the technologies that preceded email: written memos. Memos that were written (possibly on a typewriter), copied, and then distributed to something like corporate mailboxes or pigeonholes. Compared to the blizzard of paper that made up corporate life before the email life, I'd say that yeah, email improved productivity and circumvented many inefficiencies of the office place. w/r/t flattening hierarchies, it was a novel notion that you (an employee, possibly a customer) could email an executive of a company directly — again, what were the odds that you could successfully send a memo to Lee Iacocca or Thomas J. Watson.
But oh, how things have changed since those halcyon days.
This is fabulous! I wonder if I have a copy buried somewhere. The ASCII art!
Thanks, Pia!
I love that you dusted off Strunk and White. I've had a paperback copy on my shelf for years, right next to William Zinsser's On Writing Well. They've kept each other company for decades.
Here’s a review that compares S&W to Zinsser. The former does not come off well. https://asktheleagueofnerds.com/strunk-and-white-suck/
I know. But I have a soft spot for WZ. It reminds me of being in my twenties, dead sure that I wanted be a writer, and taking what he had to say very seriously. It was actually Bill Moyers who gave me the WZ book to begin with when, as a naive 22 year old, I went to him for advice on how to "be a writer." Life took me in many different directions, but the book and the memory of that younger self live on.