18 Comments
User's avatar
Alphachanneling's avatar

This read like a stone skipping on water :) happy to find you on here

Dixie Drudge's avatar

Preach it Uncle Orson! It's hard to recollect all the technology we've blown through in such a shart time on earth. I remember thinking that the introduction of the Eraser-Mate pen was the start of a Golden Age. :)

Maurice Klimek's avatar

E-pistle is a great name for a newsletter. The urinal metaphor is perfect when you're not in form ;-)

William E.'s avatar

I also text with my index finger—and I'm Gen Z!

Randy M's avatar

I hear you on the texting. Big ol' thumbs are a major inconvenience these days; I'll never have the texting game of a kid.

Jon Howski's avatar

I actually taught myself to first draft on a larger screen phone and have literally written novels just using two thumbs.

Orson Scott Card's avatar

I honor your sacrifice for literature.

Dann Newcomb's avatar

My hat is off to you!

SnowPuppy's avatar

As both a (terribly, terribly new) short story writer by night and marketing content creator by day, my head often spins from dodging hail storms of slang, acronyms, jargon and lingo. That being said, I find the word “pistle” to be quietly - yet deeply - entertaining (though, to be fair, it’s not quite as much fun as the totality of your essay on it). Thank you for the “wonderful” smiles.

Dann Newcomb's avatar

This made me chuckle several times—especially the idea of “e-pistles” being left all over the internet like tiny digital graffiti. It’s amusing how quickly language evolves with technology, and how words that once sounded strange (email, spam, text as a verb) now feel natural. The thought that we might still be inventing the vocabulary for online life is oddly comforting. Language keeps changing because there's no way to escape the need for new words to describe the weird little worlds we create. And I have to admit … I’ll probably never see the word “epistle” quite the same way again.

Orson Scott Card's avatar

If I have managed to blow up a perfectly good word and give it new meaning for you, then all my hard work ain't been in vain for nothin'.

Thalia, Muse of Comedy's avatar

Pretty funny I just wrote an article about a new urinal/sink combo called Urinealltheway being installed in the Atlantic Airport. It also could have used a new word.

Eugine Nier's avatar

BTW, trolling original comes from the fishing meaning, it was originally called "trolling for newbies".

J. Kevin Tumlinson's avatar

Every time you and I connect, I learn so many wonderful things about your methods of elimination, Scott.

Hope you are well! Now that things are calming down, we should arrange another chat!

James's avatar

Your know. You can learn to touch type on a phone, just like you did on a keyboard originally. But the better appeoach is to watch your thumbs, then do an edit pass afterward. IMO.

Orson Scott Card's avatar

It's the "edit pass" that drives me crazy. Autocorrect, instead of AI, must be AS -- Artificial Stupidity.

Orson Scott Card's avatar

And I still don't know how to work with the Substack software. On Quora, it's easy to edit what you've posted. But on Substack, a friend pointed out a typo in the header: Uncle Otson. And I have no idea how to break in and fix it, at least not when accessing it on my tablet.

James's avatar

Try a different keyboard for your phone. The default android one still doesn't seem great.

If we could get one thing out of recent ai advances, I hope eventually its autocorrect worth a damn.