E-mail: n. 1.Something you should really know what it is if you are reading this or the next definition 2.A means of sending text messages to distant computer servers 3.A reflexive entity that degrades society and college work. also vt. v. adj. adv.

The Electronic Letter

What no one calls e-mail. Ordinarily an e-mail page would give you a hyperlink to send an e-mail to the creators, operators, or important persons of the website. You can have that later. This e-mail page is an outcropping of the philosophy page that leans toward raving lunatic from lunatic. My resentment of the system of electronic mail stems from my small admiration of etymology. Most of the time, I forget about where a word came from, and stick to where it is now and why I use it. I regard the past of a word important to its meaning and our meaning of it. When a word emerges and evolves in my lifetime, however, I take extra care to guard that past, for that is my past as well. E-mail and I grew up and went to high school together, and it will likely outlive me, and I want everyone to treat it as valid.
    What lends to the validity of this word is treating it initially as its origin specifies. Electronic Mail. No one wants to spit out "electronic" anything all the time, let alone clutter up their prose (please show me a poem with "e-mail" in it) with another ten letters that can be understood replaced with one. So e. E-mail is a fine construction, even excellent, but why do we stop there? Now that we have this new word, this baby, why not raise it as we did its cousins? Its very brothers? E-mail is the practice, the object, the subject, the action, the description. To e-mail, send an e-mail, the e-mail is down, I e-mail, give an e-mail copy. The word hasn't grown at all where it reasonably ought. Why not send an e-letter, for instance? Can you separate the notion of the electronic post from that of letters? Are letters fundamentally different than e-mails? And why e-mail instead of e-post? There is no postage, but someone has to handle it, some postal service. And why isn't the USPS an e-mail server? An e-post server?
    I reserve the right to send people e-letters, to use e-post, to check my e-mailbox, and to convert one word into many, better words. No one will be confused, who knows anything of e-mail, when I tell him my e-mailing address, or to look for that e-letter in the e-mail.

My E-mailboxes

cstaniunas@dwc.edu

staniunc@clarkson.edu

kazzee@gmail.com
cstaniun@gmu.edu

No particular order. I hate the Clarkson mail because it only works with IE, which loads my drive with cookies, which bloats my screen with ads, which makes me turgid. And who really wants to be turgid and reading about anything? I would sooner presume a surfer to be able to copy and paste, or remember and retype the addresses rather than use the automatic link that brings up a window that you won't use anyway. Omit needless words for better prose, poetry, and voice. Omit needless html actions for better websites. Title all letters to "Charles Staniunas" if you wish to be formal, "Kaz" if you do not.

My AIM Screenname
Arzangremmel
My time online varies. Do identify yourself if you bother to hail me; those who begin by asking "who is this" receive no cake.