Book Notes: "General and Social Letter Writing" by Andrew George Elliot

General And Social Letter WritingGeneral And Social Letter Writing by Andrew George Elliot

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This work was a quaint historical oddity, dating to the early 1950s. I recall learning the fascinating rules and etiquette of letter writing in the 1970s and early 1980s, from the days of the address slanting from top left to bottom right, and new paragraphs indented under the first end point of the previous paragraph. Then came golf ball typewriters and later word processors, and the formatting was all left aligned for speed of communication. Letter writing is a lost art, and although there was little in this book I was not taught previously, it does remind me of a time when communicating in writing was an act of good grooming. It is regrettable that email and more recently social media-speak has deteriorated written communication to an ego-driven demonstration of bad manners and laziness. Reading Elliot's guide to the art of the simple, meditative function of letter writing was a peaceful activity. I am glad to have read it, and I immediately put it to good use by pursuing one of my favourite hobbies (letter writing) and wrote to my dear mother.



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