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Home » Archives » Fall 2009 (Volume 7 Issue 1) - Professionalization and the Writing Center, Part I
The Merciless Grammarian Fall 2009 / Columns
The Merciless Grammarian spews his wrath on nasty problems of grammar, mechanics, and style.
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Drawing by Nathan Baran Dear M to the G, So I’ve been asked to write a memo to explain some new hiring procedures at my work. Is that 8451c4LLy like an e-mail? Your BFF, Kye Whitehead My loathsome Master Whitehead: Somewhere amid the alphabet soup of your text-message-addled missive, I gathered that you are somehow confusing two very different genres of writing, each with its own purpose and tone. Let me disabuse you of this conflation. A memorandum–from the Latin for “that thing we should remember”–is a professional document that both communicates and makes things happen. “Memos,” as they are called amid the gray cubicles of today’s professional world, may be used to transmit information, invite feedback, assign responsibilities, or communicate policies. As the original Latin suggests, these documents create an official record of whatever they report. Therefore, besides the dictates of form (lines indicating who the memo is addressed to and who it is from, the date it was written and the subject), memos require special attention to audience and purpose. Many other lucky or unlucky souls may read your memo besides the person you address, and whatever you write may be consulted later or referred to in support of important decisions. An electronic mail message–letting “e-anything” pass my lips saps the ichor