The language of e-mail 121
of organization and logical progression; but in an e-mail, where the
points are taking up different issues in a previous message, such
overriding considerations are waived. The bottom line is that, with
e-mail, a new document is created with every transaction. The per-
manence of e-writing is only a superficial impression. Although a
single piece of text may be preserved throughout a thread of mes-
sages, via forwarding or replying to author, each screen incarnation
gives it a different status and may present it in a different form –
either through electronic interference from the software or edi-
torial interference from the new user. Linguistics has yet to de-
vise ways of capturing such dynamic characteristics in its stylistic
descriptions.
The issues go well beyond the linguistic. Traditional letter-
writing, through such features as its choice of notepaper, letterhead
typography, style of paragraphing, and signature format, presented
a facet of the writer’s personality and standing. People can spend
ages worrying over these matters – when ordering new notepa-
per, for example. In some circumstances – such as the writing of
references, job applications, or referee reports – the choices made
inevitably affect the receiver’s perception of the character of the
sender, and influence the outcome in all kinds of unconscious ways.
The‘meaning’ofamessageismuchmorethanthesemanticcontent
of its constituent words. But when this kind of material is submit-
ted by e-mail – as it increasingly is – all this extra meaning is lost.
Publishers, for example, commonly paste extracts from readers’
e-reports on a book proposal into a single document for submis-
sion to an editorial board. Instantiating this point, my Cambridge
in-house editor remarked:
Inevitably a small part of the ‘meaning’ as intended by the author
of the report is then lost, and some of the authorial control of the
text has shifted to me as editor. I now have the power to undertake
subtle but acceptable editorial interventions and juxtapositions
which would have been barred from me in the era when the
physical page was part of the message intended by the author....
Until a year ago [he writes in December 2000] authors of reports
remained uncomfortably aware of all this, and there was a