E-cards

[ysobel]

Dear Miss Manners: After several decades of typing on keyboards, I have lost my ability to write nicely by hand. My solution is to send electronic notes — for expressing appreciation, recognizing significant events, etc.

There are several lovely e-card forms available. Using them results in more timely responses, as well as significant savings over printed cards and postage.

I feel it would be nice if Miss Manners would acknowledge that electronic thank-yous are as valid as handwritten in today’s communication environment. Any thank-you is better than no thank-you at all.

Sorry, but you will have to snatch the fountain pen out of Miss Manners’ cold, lifeless hand before she agrees that electronic messages are as meaningful as handwritten ones.

She will concede, however, that any response is better than no response (has it really come to this?) as long as the sentiment itself is not computer-generated. “Thank you for the (insert present) that you gave me. It was very special and/or significant” is not fooling anyone.

As for your argument about saving money? Miss Manners highly doubts that the dozen or so letters you write annually is anywhere near the equivalent cost of the computer that you no doubt replace every few years.

[WaPo link]

Comments

[ysobel]

a) mumble disability mumble

b) “Thank you for the (insert present) that you gave me. It was very special and/or significant” is exactly the formula I was brought up using

c) the cost rebuttal is ridiculous -- no one buys a computer for just writing e-cards

[dissectionist]

Eat my disabled ass sideways, MM.

[full_metal_ox]

I’ll inform my 90-year-old legally blind shut-in aunt, an enthusiastic user of E-card services, of your kind words.

[ambyr]

I don't like e-cards because their animations and text-as-image are so often inaccessible to the recipient, but I don't think there's anything wrong with a nice, thoughtful email!

[full_metal_ox]

I don't like e-cards because their animations and text-as-image are so often inaccessible to the recipient…

That’s one reason I took to sending my aunt (see above) audio links to holiday music, podcasts, and Old Time Radio shows (having grown up in Indiana, she’d never before heard of The Cinnamon Bear, a beloved Christmas special among Silent Generation kids in West Coast markets.)

[dine]

I'm a boomer who grew up on The Cinnamon Bear - we'd lie on the floor outside the kitchen door, listening to episodes on mom's bakelite radio. it was a highlight leading up to the holidays; and we even got to meet Paddy at Lipman's several times.

[full_metal_ox]

How unutterably cool! I came to Old Time Radio as a second-wave fan, via the nostalgia boom of the Sixties and Seventies, and listened to broadcasts on college and public radio.

…And I’ll be superamalgated if Cinnamon Bear fandom isn’t still a thing in Portland, Oregon—-it sounds a bit like Chicago’s adulation of Bozo the Clown:
https://www.pdxmonthly.com/news-and-city-life/2019/11/why-does-portland-still-love-the-cinnamon-bear

[dine]

yeah, I live in the Portland and had heard about those cruises. nice to know some traditions continue

[angelofthenorth]

Miss manners clearly hasn't caught up with the price of stamps in the UK recently. I do the kin-keeping, sending cards all over the world as well as the UK. I could probably buy a new kindle each year for what I spend on cards.

[cimorene]

I was thinking this. Charity where I worked blew like 200€ in postage on local fundraising letters via snailmail last year because domestic stamps are over 3€ apiece in Finland.

[melannen]

Same as the US. If Miss Manners doesn't realize how expensive a first-class stamp is these days, she's clearly not sending nearly as many letters as she pretends to. I could buy a new smartphone every year for the postage on the family's Christmas cards.

excluded middle

[redbird]

Both Miss Manners and the letter writer are ignoring that LW can use the keyboard to write a nice thank-you note, print it, and mail it to someone. Or, if printing and mailing really is a problem, LW can send the note as email, not as an e-card through some company that's going to send a text or e message saying "you have an e-card" message. Sending email instead of paper mail may make things easier for both parties, but sending an ecard makes extra work for the recipient. Instead of a message from someone they know, they got a "you have an ecard" message, which is at least one extra step even if you recognize and trust the company.

Re: excluded middle

[cimorene]

This.

An electronic message may lack something that a paper one possesses, but there's no world where an actual message that you wrote isn't better than a readymade sentiment that you picked out of a lineup.

[princessofgeeks]

Yeah, Miss Manners is totes glossing over the issue of sending cards and thank you's for people who are not able to write with a pen. Yeesh.

[kaylarudbek]

My late grandmother always typed her cards on a typewriter until she got too ill to use it. I miss getting her typed cards…

[lilysea]

There's also the issue of people who ARE able to write with a pen but whose handwriting is all but illegible to the recipient

(my mother writes tiny letters in felt tip pen that are all but unreadable without severe struggle, ad sometimes not even then)

[mildred_of_midgard]

There are two kinds of manners. One is meant to make it easier for people to live together in a society without inconveniencing each other unduly. The other is meant to draw arbitrary boundaries around neutral actions, so that some people can feel superior to other people for fitting in the "right" category.

[ysobel]

Oh I love that description ...

[mildred_of_midgard]

My neurodivergent self has strong feelings about the latter.

[minoanmiss]

welll and truly said!

[bikergeek]

I am not disabled as far as I know,¹ but I have never had "nice" handwriting. In fact my handwriting as a child was so poor that my parents had hopes I would become a doctor.

I hate doing anything handwritten because half the time I can't read it myself afterwards. I'd rather send something electronic, it'd look nicer and at least I know the recipient would be able to read it.

¹It's possible that my poor handwriting is the result of dysgraphia, which is legitimately a learning disability, but that wasn't a thing when I was growing up and I have little motivation to get a formal diagnosis as an adult.

[azurelunatic]

I got an accommodation in the late 80s to submit my homework typed starting in 4th grade because handwriting was so painful and difficult for me.

[castiron]

I dislike the e-card services because I don't know which ones will spam the sender or recipient forever. However, I don't see any other etiquette issue with using them, or with sending a thank-you by email.

[katiedid717]

Yeesh, Miss Manners would hate me - I had a baby a couple months ago and when I received gifts from my registry, I sent text messages to the senders thanking them for the gifts!* There have been a few people who also got photos of baby using/wearing their gift but most of what I received was practical stuff like stroller/car seat, high chair, bath supplies, etc.

*(I did not have a shower; if I'd had a shower I would probably have done actual thank-you cards but seriously, no one ACTUALLY enjoys baby showers, right? I did you all a favor by not making you attend another shower, you can do me a favor and accept a text message as an adequate thank you lol)

[full_metal_ox]

A friend of mine memorably gatecrashed his own baby shower, arriving three weeks ahead of schedule.

[katiedid717]

Oh no!

My social sphere typically has the shower about 2 months before baby is due. One of my best friends had her shower about 6 1/2 weeks before her due date, and her baby arrived 10 days later - she had just finished unpacking gifts the night before, it was perfect timing.

[lilysea]

Text message thank you sound genuinely great! ^_^

Honestly, I've posted so many presents to friends and had *crickets*

that I would have absolutely loved a text message, even if only to know that the parcel actually got there safely!

and a photo of the item being used is going above and beyond - that's really really cool!

[katiedid717]

I can't take credit for the photo idea - one of my sisters lives on the other side of the country, so she sends pictures or videos of her girls using the gifts we send them for birthdays or holidays. I have pictures of my 5-year-old niece working in the children's activity magazine I gifted for her birthday, a little video of my 3-year-old niece giving her mother a medical check-up, and a photo of both of them holding books they were sent for Halloween. I've always enjoyed getting those pictures/videos because it's nice to know I got the girls something they actually enjoy!

[minoanmiss]

Oh hey you had the baby! congratulations!

[katiedid717]

Thank you! He's 2 1/2 months old, I don't know where the past 11 weeks have gone - he's growing so fast, it's amazing.

[cereta]

Congrats!

[katiedid717]

Thanks!

[conuly]

Miss Manners should try living on the tail end of the longest postal route in the area. We've lost so much stuff when trying to rely on mail delivery. At least ecards show up.

[katiedid717]

That's definitely a good point. You don't even need to be in a remote area for issues with the postal service - I live in the largest city in my state (based on population) and we've had problems with mail delays. I was legally obligated to send certain notices by mail at a former job, and we had times where it would take over a week to get to the recipient, and we had mailed the letters from the post office that was three blocks away from the destination!

[conuly]

I’m in NYC - the most urban part of Staten Island. I suspect that in a super rural area at least your carrier lives there too - ours are always either brand new from wherever or burned out from wherever, and it shows.

[katiedid717]

I guess it's one of those things where any location has pros and cons. I used to know someone about 20 years ago who lived in one of those "third house northbound on County Road 43" type places and they would go up to three weeks without mail because the carriers just...didn't feel like driving up their road.

[tielan]

As someone fully abled, with lovely writing, who still writes letters and sends postcards and even seals them with wax...

Fuck you, Miss Manners. Fuck you sideways with a glass fountain pen.

[minoanmiss]

WORD.

(yay sealing wax!)

[mrissa]

I would look like I am on Team Miss Manners, because I send physical thank-you notes written with fountain pens; one of them is on my current to-do list. But I am very well aware of what an outlier I am on this, not because I am the bestest person who ever personed but because I like different things than a lot of people and isn't variety nice.

But also: dozen or so, are you having a laugh, Miss Manners, what kind of family and friends have you presumed are universal? I started tracking mail during lockdown so I wouldn't send three little thinking of you cards to one elderly auntie and zero to another, so I have logs of the letters I send, and it is in the 150-250 range every year exclusive of my large Christmas card list. Also exclusive of the letters involved in my volunteer group, which right now is two a week. Yes, this is a choice. But a dozen? That doesn't get me through January, ma'am.

[ysobel]

There's absolutely nothing wrong with preferring to do handwritten notes yourself -- where MM goes wrong is declaring a universality that anyone who doesn't is Doing It Rong.

[movingfinger]

I hate getting e-cards because the ones I've gotten want me to make an account to see the e-card so that they can pester me to send e-cards.

[elf]

Did she actually say, "stop using a computer and just hand-write and mail all your correspondence?"

Is she under the impression people are buying computers for the sole purpose of sending a dozen e-cards a year?

(wtf is wrong with Miss Manners and when was she replaced by someone who has no idea that the guidelines for polite behavior are supposed to include "does not require excessive work from anyone involved?")

[mildred_of_midgard]

I had no respect for Miss Manners' lack of common sense when I was in high school, and I was in high school 1997-2001, so... this seems right on brand.

[azurelunatic]

I am pro e-cards that are images embedded or attached to the email. I am anti e-cards that require going to a third location.

[zavodilaterrarium]

I don't have anything new to add any new point to make as I agree with the other comments, but man is tradition overrated sometimes. I'm not that good with writing heartfelt letters or messages to people. All the cards I've ever contributed to are awkward and overly nerdy and too concise. None of the words I use are particularly worth anything — at best, the sketches I attach hold more sentiment. I'm far more comfortable sending a text or something like "dude, you're the best" with a bunch of screaming and GIFs if I can't give my thanks/congratulations/etc. in person. Even with my art, I'm more of a digital artist than an traditional one, so any person I gift art can get a better piece if I'm allowed to do it digitally (and no, I refuse to print it out unless that is what's requested, ink prices are crazy and the colours sometimes come out all wrong and dull). I mean, my handwriting isn't that legible to most people anyway... I think it's fine if I take it slow but people tell me it looks like I'm "trying too hard to make it fancy". I'm not. It's loopy because that's natural to me. That was the best I could do when I kept having episodes of losing control of the muscles in my arms in senior year of highschool, and it's not even messy, just "a lot".