108 LANGUAGE AND THE INTERNET
Table 4.1.Five rules of using e-mail (Flynn and Flynn, 1998: 14)
Rules Gloss
Write as though Mom
were reading
‘Write to the widestaudience imaginable.’
‘If your message is too personal,
confidential or important to write
generically, reconsider e-mail as your
vehicle.’
Think big picture ‘Always provide a brief executive summary
at the beginning of the document’.
Keep an eye on spelling,
grammar and
punctuation
‘You can be sure your readers will notice.’Don’t use e-mail to let
off steam
‘Compose yourself before composing
your message’. ‘Never use obscene,
abusive or otherwise offensive
language.’ Don’t flame (p. 55).
Don’t send to the world ‘Respect others’ electronic space, as you
would have them respect yours.’ Don’t
spam (p. 53).
traditional, giving advice on eliminating wordiness and cliche, and
guidance on grammar (addressing the usual shibboleths, such as
whether it is right to use passives, or to end a sentence with a prepo-
sition, p. 64). At times, such books resemble a standard grammar,
with tables listing the irregular verbs, frequently misspelled words,
and commonly confused words (such ascomplementandcompli-
ment).Overhalfofanye-mailguidewillbedevotedtosuchmatters.
The influence of the prescriptive tradition is clear: for example,
Flynn and Flynn^17 have a section called ‘Bending a few rules to
strike an appropriate tone’. They choose: ‘contractions [e.g.aren’t,
isn’t] aren’t bad’, ‘feel free to end a sentence with a preposition’, ‘I,we
andyoubelong in business writing’, and ‘start your sentence with
a coordinating conjunction’. Although this is a reactionagainst
(^17) Flynn and Flynn (1998: 37).