Our ceaseless researches here at the Merc have led to a startling revelation: like analog television, the pencil is almost obsolete. What follows is an actual conversation, overheard here at the library, which we had originally thought to be the last, impregnable bastion of old-timey-ness:
“I have a review due today, but I forgot my computer.”
“You could always use a pencil and paper.”
(Pause)
This demonstrates that 1 out of 2 people actually prefer to use technology for writing. We crunched the numbers and, from our sample group, that’s 50%. Clearly, fountain pens are so 2004. Speaking of old-timey-ness and writing, of his typewriter, Mark Twain, in a letter to W.D. Howells once wrote:
“Please do not even divulge the fact that I own a machine. I have entirely stopped using the Type-Writer, for the reason that I never could write a letter with it to anybody without receiving a request by return mail that I would not only describe the machine but state what progress I had made in the use of it, etc., etc. I don’t like to write letters, and so I don’t want people to know that I own this curiosity-breeding little joker.” -Ed Scripsi
[...] Here is the original: The Mercantile’s Guide to Style: The Future is Now « Stacked [...]