1427 Fontwise

I read a statistic that stated that 50% of all emails were misunderstood. It went on to say that 107 trillion emails are sent out, either annually or daily, I forget.
In any event, a lot of darned emails and lot of misunderstanding. And that doesn’t even count spelling and grammar-mangled tweets. It’s no wonder the world seems to be going to Jello in a shopping basket.
Apparently the misunderstandings aren’t just about words. For ages we’ve had that problem, where one person was far too free with multi-syllabic locutions and the other thought he was wordy dork.
No, these are problems of intent. Like conveying the subtleties of sarcasm or humor. People write emails in the mood they’re in. That mood doesn’t always come across, because people read emails in the mood they’re in.
Even the phrase, “you are so nice” could be taken any number of ways. Especially if you really sneer the word nice.
Add to that a further complication—font usage. Used to be we typed letters with two choices, pica or elite. Now we have a plethora of font choices, and no wisdom in how to use them.
I got an email from someone the other day and the font was in 16-point type and some odd sort of curlicuey thing. My first thought was, does the sender think I’m old and blind? What’s with this giant type? And my second thought was, this curlicuey thing is totally unprofessional. This is a business communication, not an invite to a wedding.
I hope none of my employees are sending out emails like that. What joy. In order to prevent miscommunication there’s another thing to micromanage. Fonts.
I am the old guy. And experienced in communication.
So I’ll have to be the font of wisdom.
America, ya gotta love it.