I'm unwilling to leave it there. Now let us address those who have web sites and ignore them by allowing old outdated stuff to remain online when it takes only seconds to change it. How about those, such as my favorite newspaper, who post email addresses at end of every story written by staff reporters to enable readers to contact them and then routinely ignore, and let go unanswered, reader email comments. Not so much as an autoresponder suggesting they can't respond to all emails!

Shall we consider things such as corporations soliciting email applications from job seekers - Then not responding to let those potential employees know resume, application and cover letter were received? Shall they expect to hear back from that HR department by email or snail mail? Fagetaboutit. Not gonna happen.

There seems to be a universal disdain and/or fear of emailed communication. I wrote last week of a lack of response from my senator and congressman to email queries to their offices about bills being considered related to privacy and cc'd president on note. I'll allow small credit for those autoresponder generated messages sent within seconds back to my emailbox. But this week I saw a story in San Francisco Chronicle that suggested "Lawmakers Lament Lack of Letters From Constituents".

The reporter, Washington correspondent Carl Nolte, even wrote, "Feinstein, for one, has encouraged constituents to send email, since her regular mail has been cut off." Sheesh! This after I got back my note from her last week stating, "Currently I've received approximately 30,000 letters and emails which, because of closure of Senate office buildings, my staff and I have been unable to open and process." Today autoresponder failed to return that same (or any) response.

What does that mean? I emailed a response to reporter and don't expect an answer. They just don't respond (or autorespond).

Probably that they have gone back to normal position of ignoring email. It is time to take a serious look at whether we will accept email as legitimate and deserving of responses, or if it will remain entirely realm of spammers, scammers and hoax-spreading-urban-myth-generating-pass-this-on-silly blathering goofiness. We should just disable "Forward" function of email and rid ourselves of those annoyances.

I suggest that either email deserves legitimacy, respect and ANSWERS, or that we abandon it entirely.

A spell check is definitely a useful tool, but it doesn't necessarily have human intuition to catch all errors. So, no matter how great your spell check is, remember that there is simply no substitute for a careful, human read-through.

Just like any other piece of poor writing, an email full of mistakes can do damage to your credibility, which can be devastating for anyone trying to do business on web. On Internet, people have to rely on written communication, and if yours isn't effective, your business and your image will suffer.

If you don't feel you have grammatical expertise to catch all errors yourself, get a co-worker or friend to do it for you. Even experienced writers often need a second pair of eyes to catch little mistakes.