thought occurred to me last night during one of my all too frequent bouts of insomnia. Normally I dismiss these ideas in the morning as ridiculous. Such as my idea for inclined travellators at airports to help people get fit, especially the tardy, and my idea for renaming all London Boroughs "Royal" to level up the playing field - think of it, "come to Royal Newham", seems only reasonable. OK so LiveTV took up my idea for Topless Darts and I'm still battling Pear Tree Productions for the rights to Monkey Tennis.
However this one has been on my mind all day, not so much an idea as an opportunity missed. In the early days of electronic communication through the internet, someone hit upon the idea of calling them e-mails, sticking the letter e on mail like so much i on Jobs. A bland and every day sort of coinage. Well there's a ready made word we could have chosen to resurrect, an old word meaning letter or message, little used these days and pre-e'd up. That is epistle or e-pistle meaning letter.
Would it not sound so much more interesting to be sending and receiving e-pistles than the rather dull e-mail. "I've just received another e-pistle", would sound grand and important, rather than the implication of another offer from someone to have your penis enlarged. It could have improved the whole language, "Tarry a while sir, for I must return to my e-scritoire concerning some e-pistles", sounds so much better than, "Wait here, I've got to check my e-mail on the computer". The whole language and our discourse could be thusly improved.
The campaign starts here not e-mail but henceforth e-pistle and to any nay-sayers I say this, you sir are what is holding back this country.
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