150 years later. The Gettysburg Address then and now!

Posted by Paul Babicki and Netiquette IQ

Today is the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. In my book, "Netiquette IQ - A comprehensive Guide to Improve, Enhance and Add Power to your mail", I have the except shown below. It is meant to convey how today's technology has in so many ways diluted from the power of tradition communications. It is worth thinking about! Here is a link to listen to it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvA0J_2ZpIQ

 

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The art of letters will come to an end before AD 2000. I shall survive as a curiosity.

—Ezra Pound

 

 

How would famous letters of the past look today? Here is one scenario:

Original text: The Gettysburg Address           Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.               Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.               But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. —Abraham Lincoln

2013 version: The Gettysburg Address   TO:                   The US Congress   FROM:              POTUS CC:                   US Army RE:                   The battle of G’burg                             87 years ago the USA was born, so we all would B free. Now we’re @ war. We just had a big battle & I wanted 2 pay tribute 2 the dead and wounded, of course.                           The sacrifices speak 4 themselves and will B remembered. We need 2 make sure we finish the job ASAP. In this we’ll B free.                           God bless the US. A.    L.

        Although the rewritten Gettysburg Address may seem overly simplified and a bit comical, emails of today produce results similar or even worse. This book is committed to assist all of its readers to take advantage of today’s technologies by combining them with the positive attributes of traditional communication. By achieving this end, the reader will contribute to his or her own and others’ successes.

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About Netiquette IQ

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