Here is my response:
I just read your post and not only was it a delight to read but absolutely, positively, 100% correct. That's what Tumblr is. A long-form social networking site and by long form I mean it's merely a longer form of people's status bars on Facebook. It's not better, just longer. Your whole thing about punctuation, grammar, etc was also spot on. I was *just* having this conversation at work, actually. It drives me up the wall whenever I read misspellings and oh gawd, bad grammar. I even die a little when I read a typo because it's usually something that if read through JUST ONCE could be fixed! But hey, nobody rereads their work, right? I can't say I'm a saint when it comes to spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc. but at least I try. *At least* I reread through my work whether it be a text, a blog, an email or whatever. Yes, it takes me 10x longer than the average person to send something that should be "instant" (i.e. this very email) but I like to think the quality is a little higher than the average person's too. Though I must add, I'm a little obsessive. Lord knows how many times I've combed through past posts on my Blogspot to correct spelling and typos or change around sentences to make them sound better. It's not like anyone is going to go back and read them but it feels better once I do it. Like now, all is right with the world. Sigh. I blame my parents.
I just wish people cared a little more about what they sent out for the world to read. Now again, I have been guilty on numerous occasions (especially this past quarter in my creative writing class. Oh goodness...) of turning in assignments without having even skimmed through them. The main reason is lack of time (I save things until the last minute) but another strong reason is lack of caring. I didn't care. And I feel like most of society is the same. They don't care how it sounds, if anything is spelled wrong or if they used "effect" instead of "affect" but rather that you got the message. All that matters is that you get the gist of what the person is saying. I blame this on our "I want it now!" culture. For the most part, I love it! Who doesn't like dinner in 3 minutes thanks to the microwave or communication with an entire office in 1 minute thanks to email or being able to chat with a friend in 1 second thanks to texts? But for every good there is a bad and I think you're right, everything is only as good as the next tidbit or soundbite.
As creepy as Mr. Ruiz was (and perhaps still is) I remember him mentioning how when we type, we type with so many typos that are automatically corrected or revealed to us by that red squiggly line that when we write by hand we have the same number of typos, misspellings, etc. but never go back to change them. This left Mr. Ruiz with paper after paper ridden with errors and our generation with atrocious spelling that we think is alright. He then said he wished we had to use typewriters (like he's even old enough to have used one...) because with that, no typos/misspellings were allowed. If you made just one mistake, Bam! You had to rip out the paper and start all over again. His theory was that spelling was a lot better back then than it is now because of the typewriter and although at the time I just quickly nodded my head so he could leave us alone and stop berating my generation, after some time I couldn't help but agree with what he was saying. Because of this, I unfortunately do not believe writing will go back to the way it was.
Unless writing is confined to only the elites who have nothing but an ink pad and paper or even worse, stone to chisel, and all other forms of "showing" are erased (i.e. television, movies, pictures) writing for the masses will never again be beautifully detailed, elegant, and sanstypos. Could you imagine Shakespeare coming out with *any* of his work today? It'd be thrown out! "What's all this about comparing Juliet's beauty to a rose? Just say she's beautiful!" Not to mention no one would understand it. I know you know even the peasants understood his plays. Now writing for the masses is geared towards an 8th grade reading level and even that is a joke. Pole a sample of 8th graders and I'm sure we'd be disappointed at best by the results.
Maybe I'm just being pessimistic but I think writing is only going to get worse. That means people like you just have to continue writing the way you do and pray that it catches on. If not beautiful prose, at least we'd live in a world where slang in an email to a teacher was considered vile, thinking "puppy" was a verb led to jail time and writing using cApiTaL aNd lOwErCaSe LeTtErS aLoNg w1tH nUmb3rS caused a person to be ostracized by society and forced to live in Siberia or the Sahara desert where no one knew of their crime.
That Edwards is a world I would love to live in.
