The Grunt and Technology -A Reflection

     It all began, I guess, when someone wanted to keep a prized morsel from someone else who also wanted it! Then and there, in the dim distant darkness eons ago, the possessor and the wanter grunted. And so began the art of communication. One would think that humans were then the equal, at least, of animals, so they began to realize that different sounding grunts signaled different meanings.  We all know that over the years, the grunts were refined so as to develop the nuance of the grunter’s meaning. Thence came a sophisticate that thought it would be good if we classified our grunts so that each particular grunt would convey the same thought.

     Low and behold, there was speech! Well, not exactly speech but a refined set of grunts. This refinement probably developed according to the urgency of the situation. We all, well most of us anyway, agreed to that set of grunts having the same meaning. Children, of course, would still be permitted to claim they didn’t understand. Now so that Mother could leave a note for Johnny containing things for him to do when he came home from school, and a list of “honey do’s” for Daddy, we had to develop a way to preserve the grunts. Aha -writing. But people grunted with different accents. The grunts in Africa, Europe and America just weren’t the same. So a different sophisticate decided that the writing of a grunt should look the same (This was obviously before Babel!). Thus, came spelling! It was necessary to put the words signifying a grunt together similarly, thus the need for letters. When the letters were put together correctly, a particular grunt was indicated. Aha, correct spelling. 

     Well, time passed, and people saw the need for a correct order of grunts. They noted that some grunts modified other grunts. They began to see a new respect if their writings ordered the grunts in a more formal flowing manner. Thus came about grammar, parsing and the study of rhetoric. The ability of speaking well, convincingly and politely became a true art form. Those who mastered this art were widely admired. One simply did not communicate without applying this art form. Such was rude, callous and certainly no worthy of acceptance! 

     Then came along a “wise guy” who thought it would be a lot easier if all preservable communication did not have to be written by hand. So Mr. Gutenberg invented the printing press. It was an awkward but revolutionary development. Doctors loved it because no one would have to read their handwriting. But, as with all good innovations, we all finally caught on. Our hand writing no longer had to be smooth, cursively correct, or applied with an artistic flourish, because what we wanted to convincingly communicate or to preserve, could be just as well be printed. Then came along the typewriter. Our very own printer, although only highly skilled stenographers could properly manipulate them. And just to show us how little we knew, they reinvented their own wheel. They called it shorthand. It was, and remains, unintelligible to the unlearned. But because “to err is human” we had to invent an excuse for careless printing. Thus, “typographical” error. This was an allowed mistake, and was not deemed an error. So convinced of this were we, that when bigger printers came along, called presses (as in “Stop the presses”) a typographical was permissible. We even made the error more friendly by shortening it to “typo”. But even with the presses, we held on to colorful, forceful, effective, imaginative, artful, and sometimes “flowerful”, writing. 

     However, somewhere along the line, we began to tire of the work involved in written communication. Maybe it was easier and quicker to use the newfangled technology, the telephone. Maybe it was easier to “tell them when I see them”. Maybe it was easier to have one of those stenographers do it. But, whatever, we started to stop. After all, people were speaking in that new language they learned from radio and television. But then to get even with those steno’s for inventing a secret code, “so as to better take dictation”, they said, we developed tape recorders for dictation without shorthand. And, as if that were not enough, we discovered “the personal computer”! 

     Now, computers would relieve us of several tasks, but first we had to figure out how to use them. Our secretaries jumped right in, since they already knew how to type. We sophisticates who turned up our noses at such menial work as typing had now to learn how to type. We live in an age where we’re still not very good at it. We found, though, that we could communicate easily with the computer and no one seemed to care about spelling, grammar, rhetoric, proper construction or the like. If one could decipher the meaning, that was good enough. Then, on top of e-mail, came twittering, and i-fogging (did I get that wrong?!) and texting. There is a new sort of language now, I understand, that demands the fewest letters necessary to communicate to someone else, who also understands this “code”. ( I wonder if the secretaries got together on this?)  Spelling, sentence structure, grammar and what was once called effective writing are of no moment. The thought process seems to be boiling down to a basic evisceral norm – dare I call it a “return to the grunt”? It is, in all seriousness, rather sad to see literature, legal documents, speeches, and other forms of  effective, convincing and moving speaking and writing disappear. But I suppose it is simply the beginning of another cycle in communication! I cannot wait for the next several thousand years to see the  return of what I dare to call effective writing, and speaking. Imagine a President without a Speech prompter! The media would rejoice at least. Imagine a teen actually writing in long hand! Imagine being rapt in ecstasy this written communication! I have just one parting word—GRUNT.

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