Saturday 14 September 2024
SAE
This morning, Mrs H and I were chatting about how easy it has become to find and book a holiday. Click, click, check the price and location, check the reviews, click, click goes the credit card and the job’s done.
We went on to chat about older forms of communication such as letters and sending off for holiday brochures with an SAE for the reply. Which reminded us of something else - who now knows what an SAE, a stamped addressed envelope was?
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13 comments:
Look at the communication technologies that have fallen from public use. Telegrams, gone. Fax machines, gone. Pagers, gone (apart from some private ones). Public telephone boxes, much reduced and nearly gone. Analogue landlines, on the way out.
If the internet fails for more than a few hours we will truly be at a loss.
And as for SAEs and real letters, I find my handwriting has nearly collapsed now I mostly use a keyboard or vocal commands.
And tax discs for the car. What a bloody palaver that was. Waiting in line in the post office with your MOT, insurance, renewal reminder, and cheque book. And I was always behind the confused old duck who was paying cash to send multiple parcels abroad.
Even Royal Mail seems to be catching up: pay postage online, postie collects and supplies label.
Had something to return to Amazon last week:— No need to repack it, request return, take QRcode to post office (printed out because I don't have smartphone), post office scans code, puts item in bag with label, email confirming credit in Amazon account before I got home. Only flaw was the confused old duck in the PO queue.
I do not do it very often, about as often as I ever did, but sometimes penning a hand written letter on good quality paper is approprate.
Now I find that I can only buy good writing paper with matching envelopes on line. Made in France.
Same goes for ink. Just simple black ink for my old fountain pen.
DJ - yes, the big problem with going digital is failure. Too much depends on it working and there are too few alternatives, often no alternatives. My handwriting was never very good, probably even worse now but I don't write enough to find out.
Sam - I thought I was always behind the confused old duck, although mine probably just came for a chat with the person behind the counter to spin out the day.
djc - we recently had to return something to Amazon and couldn't quite believe how simple it was. I took the trouble to pack it securely in layers of parcel tape, but there was no need. As you found, we could have taken it to the Post Office as it was. Impressively slick we thought.
Doonhamer - penning a hand written letter on good paper does require reasonable penmanship though. Mine isn't good enough for that so I always typed letters. Not always as appropriate, but readable. I had a go at calligraphy once and the results weren't bad, but too slow for a letter.
BT sent me one of those to return my old hub … it was a big envelope … well, a bag really. Stamped and addressed though.
A few months ago I found the old fountain pen my parents had given me as a schoolboy - perhaps for writing my exam scripts. I still used it at and after university even though it had developed a crack. But mainly I used biros.
I pondered and then put it in the rubbish. Goodbye to all that.
What I do find disconcerting is how rarely I sign my signature nowadays. Each time I find I must practise a few times on scrap paper if the thing is to be recognisably mine.
James - ours was so old, BT didn't want it.
dearieme - I have to practise my signature too. I don't like doing it straight off as it's just a scrawl I used to dash off without thinking, but the ability to do that has faded.
I like writing letters, as it helps my concentration, and the grammar and descriptive terms of the English language takes me back to my schooldays, and the English lessons from Miss Bulmer, a stern, Margaret Rutherford type lady, who instilled in me a love of writing.
Now in my late 70's, with all the time in the world, letters to my grandchildren of my times when I was the age they are now, seems to give them great pleasure.
As a humorous aside, during my time in the Army, I was sent on a speed writing course - similar to shorthand but using the alphabet rather than symbols.
My next profession was as a Police officer, where your pocket more book described your life, with actions, locations, and conversations recorded. With so much writing, I used my speed writing knowledge, until I had to show my original written notes to a defence brief in court. His complaint that he could neither make head nor tale of it, led to an interview (without coffee) with a senior officer. That was the end of my speed writing.
They were good days.
Penseivat
Penseivat - it sounds as if you could put a very readable memoir book together from Miss Bulmer onwards. I was always a reader rather than a writer, although my writing has always been a scrawl which even I can't always read.
I suppose many of us could put a memoir together by the time we reach our seventies, but so few of us do. I'm pretty sure I won't.
And back to the post, only thing I sign these days is the little tablet the postie presents when delivering parcels. It's impossible to sign that properly, not even initials, just a irregular scratch around the pad — probably should have a caption attached 'djc, his mark'
djc - ah yes, I have to use one of those for our Tesco deliveries. An unrecognisable squiggle is the best I can do, but it doesn't seem to matter.
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