Good Morning all, (that's "y'all" to you, BT)

One big problem I have found with email and electronic messaging is the difficulty in conveying "tone of voice" in a few words snapped off and fired into the ether.

That's the reason some digital caveman, err, sorry, cave-person, in the dark ages of the Internet, invented those damned "smilies" or "emoticons" that I hardheadedly refuse to use.

It's possible to convey tone of voice with the written word, but it takes a lot more work than most of us are willing to put into a quick message. So the reader, in many cases, reads into a message the tone that he wants to read into it, positive, negative, tongue-in-cheek, combative, etc.

Anyway, if you read the above exchanges again in an opposite frame of mind (whatever that was at first), I think you can see that all of them could be taken several different ways depending on what "tone of voice" is in your mind when you read them.

The cause of many needless flame wars, one initial misunderstanding caused by misreading the tone of a message. Both ways.

Fascinating stuff. Far as I'm concerned, we're all in this together and have been for the last 35 or 40 years. Anything else is just details.

Y'all have a Merry Christmas now, heah?

Bob K-

(Anybody who wants to hear "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" from me can kiss my yankee ass.)