Article on Email and the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

The article on Wikipedia regarding the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis was very informative, but I feel that it lacked demonstration through examples. In terms of the hypothesis, the article made me really think about language and how it works today. Without language our world could not possibly exist. I definitely agree with Whorf that language influences thought. The more developed our language is, the more developed our thoughts are. If we live in a society where language is articulate, we speak our thoughts more often too. Although, Sapir believes that "...languages are systematic, formally complete, systems..." which I don't not completely agree with. Yes, with human interaction it describes it perfectly, but what about other animals? Animals communicate, though in different ways than humans, all the time but not as formal, (at least it seems so) and systematically as humans do.

The article on email honestly helped me. I do try to write proper emails when writing to someone with more authority, but the detail Jerz goes into never occured to me. His ten points, I believe, should be communicated to the world because it will definitely help the world of emails. Point number one, "Write a meaningful subject line," affected me the most. I never gave much thought to the subject line before the article, but now I know that if I want people to read my emails, they should appeal to the reader thought the subject line. I do agree with Jerz on punctuation and spelling. Many younger people take email in the same resect as text messaging. Sometimes their half spelled words will not make sense and confuse the reader (other times its just plain annoying..). I will be sure to use Jerz's ten tips for my future emails.

Here is a video called "The Dirty Dozen Rules of Email Etiquette" (Tim Sanders) that also argues how email is abused in the professional world today.
http://www.emailatoz.com/index.php/video





Articles:
Wikipedia Online Encycloedia. "The Sapir-Whorf Hyothesis"http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/e-text/e-mail.htm
Dennis G. Jerz. "Writing Effective E-Mails: Top Ten Tips" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir%E2%80%93Whorf_hypothesis