It started me thinking about what an anachronism this is now. Post-script. In the days before WYSIWYG editors when text was always serial and if you remembered something after the fact you had to add it to the end. Why would you do that now? Why not just stick it inline, where it would have been if you'd thought of it at the time?
Two possibilities sprang to mind. Maybe adding it in at the right place would disturb the sense of the sentence, and you don't have time (or you're too lazy) to frig around with it. Far simpler to just jot the thought down whole, at the end, in a PS.
Or maybe you already sent the email, and you want to make it clear that what you send after it should have been part of it in the first place. Maybe we need another standard subject prefix of "PS:" to go along with "Re:" and "Fw:"
So from a point where I thought PS belonged in the age of Basildon Bond and sealing wax, I've now convinced myself that it'll be around for a fair few years yet.
3 comments:
In my mind, PS. has an important use.
I type as I think, as I feel at the time. If I feel the need to add something, I want the reader to know where the thought came from and when.
Not using PS. is like re-recording a conversation. You would lose too much spontaneity.
I like PS.. but i think it's not probably something you see anyone under 30 or 35 using. Habit of us older pre-digitized generation. I like the spontenaity of it too, like Don.
P.S.? Nothing wrong with it. But when get a P.P.S Now that really worries me.
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