[TML] List Etiquette

[Richard Aiken]

On Dec 27, 2007 4:26 PM, Colin Paddock <su_liam at clearwire.net> wrote:
> But, even the letters from some fairly anonymous Civil War
> grunt to his beau back in Alabama or Vermont with poor grammar and
> indescribably terrible spelling did a better job of conveying context
> and the point to which they were speaking than the most erudite email
> I've read in ages.

I wonder if the difference may lie at least partly in the reader's
knowledge base?

In this particular case, might not we (with a broader contextual grasp
of the overall course of the Civil War) not be reading into the letter
more than the writer is actually saying?  I've studied a little
history (I got my BS in it) and that's part of the challenge of
reading source documents.  We have to consciously attempt to forget
what we "know" about ultimate outcomes and events contemporaneous to
the writer (but of which he could not have had reasonable knowledge).

On the other hand, there are many things about the period that we
can't really know, at least not on an instinctual level.  Take
cooking.  When baking a cake is pretty much an all-day affair,
getting/eating one has a different meaning than it does for us.  This
would be true even in the case of period wealthy - who'd hardly slave
over a wood-burning oven themselves - as it's doubtful that we have
(or even can have) the same attitude toward servants that they did.

-- 
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident."  Robert A. Heinlein