Behold the power of the written word!

Writing. The companion to reading. The two combined skills make up the set that we call literacy and they tend to go hand in hand. When you learn how to translate the symbols that are used for written language, you usually learn how to make them, and then string them together to make words of your own. Written language, as I've said, is the most fantastic tool that our species has managed to develop. How else do you permanently expand the human memory? And then allow it to be passed onto subsequent generations intact?

These are our laws. Our traditions. How you grow corn. Who was snogging who in the royal palace. Some of these accounts are more important than others. Yes indeed. But that is the power of the written word, for today you can record, and then future generations can make those decisions. Ideas can not only be diffused geographically, but carried forward in time. Ideas are powerful. Being able to record and share them? That's a force multi-plier right there. And a powerful one at that.

Writing to Civilization is like Quad-Damage to Quake.

But making the symbols represents the most rudimentary grasp of the skill.

Like everything else, you can know how to write and how to Write. True writing involves not just scratching out symbols, but also the act of communication. Effective communication. This is where the true merit of the skill lies. To take a complex set of instructions or events and transcribe them in a manner that is easily understood, without extra explanation, that's a talent to nurture.

Treaties, manuals and love letters. They all require a the ability to carefully arrange the written word. Else they lose their power. “Hey Dog, how are you.” has a vastly different meaning than “Hey Dawg, how are you.” Don't believe me? Try writing a letter to your girlfriend using the first variation. Odds are that expressing your regret properly will run into a rather large offering of chocolate and flowers.

It'll be funny. Do it.

We currently live in a wonderful time for writers. We have two awesome tools that make the process simple and clean. The first leads to the second, and it is, Word Processing software. WP allows the writer to quickly and easily change words, and sentences. Even paragraphs. This is a wonderful labor-saving device and I love it for my own work. In knowing how to compose and write, one can even learn to hide information within the language. Poems and stories can become coded messages.

The second tool, as was mentioned, is built into most word processing software. Guessed what it is yet? Bingo, spell-check. The English language consists of hundreds of thousands of words, and for most ordinary humans remembering how to spell them all is nigh on impossible. At the same time, miss-spelling words makes you look like an imbecile. More so if you're working on a formal project. In addition to looking stupid with miss-spelling, as was alluded to earlier, you can also change the meaning of the sentence.

How to avoid this? Practice and experience. They're about all you can do. Just like most aspects of life. No problem right? You probably already have a computer. All you need to do is start a blog. Like everyone else on the internet. Then you can practice all you like, and people might even read what you wrote. And come back to call you an idiot.

We need to preserve the knowledge about all things writing. Else, who will record the naughty sonnets and limericks that we compose in our time of despair?

For there once was a man from Nantucket.