Page:When You Write a Letter (1922).pdf/22

 "I don't know anything about spelling or grammar," was his reply. "That's my stenographer's business. I simply tell her what to say and she fixes it up all right." I had had enough letters from him, however, to know that his stenographer was quite as deeply immersed in orthographic and grammatical darkness as was he himself, and that he was blissfully in ignorance of the fact.

Stenography has done a great deal to facilitate and accelerate letter-writing, but in many ways it has injured and cheapened the art. Very few men dictate as they talk. They fall into a conventional mechanical style, often verbose, and usually abrupt and lacking in grace and rhythm. It is pretty hard to talk cleverly into a dictaphone or to extemporize mellifluous phrases to a man fingering a stenotype. Some men can give a personal human touch to a dictated letter, but the number is limited. Dictated letters are infrequently planned with much care, and such a letter usually contains more words and says less than a letter written by hand. The limitations of time in writing a letter in longhand give opportunity for thought