Contents

• Introduction
• What are manners?
• Online manners
• Informal emails
• Eighteenth-century manners
• Conclusion
• Figures:
  1. Business email
  2. Friendly email
  3. Angry email

One of the most obvious differences between online written manners and traditional written manners is the emphasis in traditional communication on strictly adhering to the standard rules of grammar. As Lord Chesterfield points out, good manners, which included following the rules of grammar, were "necessary" to a person's success and social standing. "I must tell you, too, that orthography (spelling), in the true sense of the word, is absolutely necessary for a person of letters..." (Chesterfield 44).

In addition to the focus on proper grammar, manners in physical communication often must deal with the art of speaking to convey ideas. This necessarily adds complications to communicating in general, and raises its own forms of propriety that do not enter the picture in textual communication. According to Lord Chesterfield,

It is not enough to speak the language in its utmost purity and according to the rules of grammar, but you must speak it elegantly, use the best and most expressive words and put them in the best order. You should likewise adorn what you say by proper metaphors, similes and other figures of speech; and enliven it by quick and sprightly turns of wit. Deliver and pronounce what you say gracefully and distinctly. Consult your own ear to avoid cacophony and, what is near as bad, monotony.

Think also of your gesture and looks, when you are speaking even upon the most trifling of subjects. The same things differently expressed, looked, and delivered, cease to be the same things (Chesterfield 17).

As we can see, in the world of the eighteenth-century nobleman, form was as important as content in conveying ideas. "The manner is often as important as the matter, sometimes more so" (Chesterfield 5).

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