"I sent you love letters. You corrected the spelling mistakes and sent them back."

xpost
Well, gee, I was 15, I had a HUUUUUUGE OMG I WILL DIE crush on him for like three weeks, then I moved on to other important teenage matters.

Jag älskar dig. Jag älskar dig mer än sjön älskar fiskerna. Jag älskar dig mer än hamstern älskar sin saltsten. Om jag ska kyssa dig, vill du inte smälla mig?

Now correct my mistakes, please... ;-)

(And it's "fiskarna")

see sloan's 'underwhelmed' for something similar. actually, the first thing i thought when i read the original post was that she was acutally chris murphy. swoon.

This is clearly a case of embedded memory syndrome. Serge Gainsbourg's song 'En Relisant Ta Lettre' describes exactly this situation. Well, actually, it's even worse, because Gainsbourg goes through the letter correctly all the spelling and grammar mistakes, and we slowly realise it's a suicide note.

(Commits suicide.)

Does Fiskarn mean fisherman? I think I know somebody whose nickname is Fiskarn (although I've never seen it written down, so I can't be sure).

I know exactly why Hanna would correct the boy's love-letter spelling BTW. It's a way of correcting a power balance in a relationship when the other person perhaps believes themselves to be more worldly than you - or conveys that confident attitude - and you're trying to prove you're not intimidated by that.

(xpost: funny who should turn up when I'm talking about this, and with an egregious spelling error to boot).

Momus>>> Yes, possibly! But I strongly doubt that this person would have heard Serge Gainsbourg. A more likely situation would be that I had read that story or heard that song and subconsciously loved its dramatic qualities and copied it.

Suzy>>> I believe you are very much OTM. Thank you for phrasing that better than I could.

I missed this - ha ha!

It's a way of correcting a power balance in a relationship when the other person perhaps believes themselves to be more worldly than you - or conveys that confident attitude - and you're trying to prove you're not intimidated by that.

Well, since you waved this question towards me, Suzy, I'd like to wave you towards my LJ entry today, which is about the limitations of the kind of identity politics I see lurking behind your position on this. Stigma on steroids.

(are we watching the beginning of a full-on ScandoILXor lurve match?)

(Unrelated: Momus, look for an e-mail from me in the next couple of minutes.)

Colin, my e mail is actually

momus@t-online.de

not the old Demon address on my login.

Mwahaha. Remember that, my little peons...

Someone once wrote a song (sort of) about me correcting spelling mistakes.

I was sorta trying to convey opposite, "you won't slap me, will you?". Should I have used "ska" or "skulle" instead of "vill"?

(And it's "fiskarna")

Oh, I knew that. I was my Swedish was better, I did study it for six years back in elementary and high school. Still, I'ts kinda cool having a secret language none of the other folks here understand.

I wish my typing was better as well.

I once sent a girl ("a" girl, sheesh - she was the girl) a short love letter, one word at a time, over the course of about a fortnight. I thought it expressed my devotion, but in retrospect it must have resembled some sort of sinister ransom note. I was certainly mentally ill.

Tack, jag måste använda dessa någon tid. ;-)

If I liked them a lot, I probably would not make many corrections. Also, if I liked them a lot, their infelicities might become felicities somehow?

If someone corrected my mistakes, would it irritate or entrance? Actually, I don't think it would entrance. I think I know how to write, by now, in my own ways: I don't need lessons from some hack lassie.

I don't think N. is mentally ill, now. Perhaps we have all matured?

i take it back, sarah is chris murphy.

I don't need lessons from some hack lassie.

i'm now imagining the pinefox's educational relationships with horses and dogs. i think i ate too many cookies at my meeting.

(Alba is probably one of the most sane here)

Even so, I don't mean to imply that one should correct and return them.

(x-post: Markelby perhaps shares my feeling?)

Perhaps I need lessons from a fluffy collie.

I was thinking Dashboard Confessional and was glad I didn't recognize it. ;-) (And yes, fun thread!)

Either that, or the Long Lost Trembling Blue Stars album. ;-)

A funny thing about that is that it seems like 'arduous'.

Yes, I think that common misspellings could be a grey area.

A probably different issue is: typos. We have all made many, have we not?

I am sorry to say that I later threw the letter away. That is another story.

It's probably been that long (if not longer) for me as well. It seems no one writes letters anymore.

Yes, that's true. Using a dictionary, and maybe getting a trusted friend to check it should help, but maybe they shouldn't have to.

But I suppose there is a significant dichotomy here, of two ways in which (we imagine) love gets into language: 1) at great speed, because ruled by reckless passion; 2) very slowly, because a matter of the utmost delicacy.

I think I still have it, maybe I will look for it later.

a hit, a very palpable hit. after all, use everyone after their own desserts, and who shall 'scape whipping?

2) very slowly, because a matter of the utmost delicacy

ah, now this thread is becoming my favourite too; we tresspass on the territory of Roland Barthes, I think.

For some time, I have been in the grip of the idea of acceptable (benign, I suppose) illness, mental and otherwise. Rather than attempt to write a book about my theories, I may just start an ILE thread someday.

When I got to college, I got my first love letter from my summer fling. It looked like it had been written by a little kid. The spelling was atrocious. I mean, I'm not the best writer, but this was embarassing

That is not how to spell 'embarrassing'.

I really love when people who write well have horrible, insane-looking handwriting. There's just something slightly endearing about it.

N's one letter at a time thing sounds adorable! Would people really find this creepy?

*: well, reconfigure it as a tribute to Avril on my bedroom wall, which is virtually the same thing.

(x-post)

I don't care about my handwriting, so much, these days, so it is usually just fine.

I think Hanna's left the building. Also, I think she's spoken for, and I'm an honourable guy.

xpost

For some time, I have been in the grip of the idea of acceptable (benign, I suppose) illness, mental and otherwise.

This could be the first sentence of a Sebald novel.

Eh? No it isn't, but were all part of the happy Nordic family. What's your point?

I am now imagining Tuomas as the Finnish Paxman.

I read _that_ as "honorary gay" - like an honorary degree, when you don't actually have to do any of the work to get the title...

Sloan, "Underwhelmed"

Jan at work secretly corrected her seven-year-old son's homework. It was an exercise to fill in the ends of words with -ful. She was convinced they should end -full and by doing this, she was helping him. So, having done his homework perfectly, he unknowingly handed in a page of wonderfull, beautifull, carefull etc. When his teacher gave him back a page full of red ink, he saw red. I think she ended up giving him cash to appease him.

I used to keep all my old letters, both received and unsent, in a circular biscuit barrel. When I left home, the barrel stayed in my bedroom. On returning home for the Christmas after I left, I found the barrel empty. The cleaning lady had thrown the letters out, taking them for rubbish. At the time, I was distraught, but seven years on I feel the cleaner's judgement of them was most likely correct.

Well, in the narrowest sense of the word Scandinavia would include only Sweden and Norway, the geographical Scandinavia. A broader definition would also include Denmark and Norway, because these four cultures are ethnically and linguistically quite close. Finnish people differ from Scandinavians genetically and linguistically (the original Finns came here from the east), but all the five countries have pretty strong ties and culturally resemble each other, which is why they have a common title, the Nordic countries.

I read _that_ as "honorary gay" - like an honorary degree, when you don't actually have to do any of the work to get the title...

I think I actually do fall under this category...

Does that sound odd?

these and iceland and finland are nordic, I also always thought.

and why they always vote for each other in the eurovision song contest, pesky Nordic block vote, grrr ;)

When I met up with her friend last year, I found out that she had always known it was me that was writing, and we sort of laughed about it. I realised, maybe 12 and a half years ago, that it was in fact this friend (who I had always known better than the other girl) that I was really in love with. I wrote to tell her this at the time, in a matter of fact way, as part of general correspondence that I can't really call a love letter, but she chose to ignore this in her reply, which I think was the polite and sensible thing to do. We didn't mention it when we met up last year either.

Maybe I should start sending love letters again. But to who?

It wasn't the mistakes as such. It was deciding to put something a different way, move around entire sections, erase something completely with no chance of them holding it up to the light to see it (scrubbing it black looks too scary). All the stuff computers now let me do.

Jess's ant, in an endless white void, yesterday.

This thread has grown, it has grown harder to keep up with. Thanks, Debden, for your comment way upthread: that was my best paragraph.

N., your tale makes me think that you might have been mentally ill, in a way.

Did Frank O'Hara always spell correctly?

How about a Dada jig saw puzzle? It would still take many minutes, I suppose. But, it would be easy to complete. ?

xpost

i think it would be interesting for people to systematise and describe the psychology and habits of their love letter writing rather than listing the last time they send a handwritten letter.

eek!

I did not realize that the thread title was a quotation - but perhaps that was foolish of me, as it is in quotation marks.

Maybe the recipient of the jigsaw had a deep-lying feeling that James Schuyler had been criminally unappreciated for too long, and this was the last straw in the coke bottle.

I have a vivid memory of my mother doing just this--I'd drawn a picture and written a story or something to go along with it--it wasn't homework but I was really proud and presented it to her and the first thing she did was correct my spelling, of the word 'girl.' I was pretty little--maybe 4 or 5? Anyway, I got really upset and cried a lot. Thus was ingrained my neurotic perfectionism. Thanks mom! Other kids had their messy poorly-spelled homework tacked up on their fridge--we just had a single magnet. This was maybe the first sign I recognized that my family was different. I went on to become one of the best spellers in my class. The end.

Anyway on the train this evening some schoolgirls came in and began to study, quizzing each other on the spelling of 'Rio De Janeiro.' The first one answered: 'R I O...D Y J I N E R O' and I wanted to turn around and say "omigod that is SO WRONG." but I didn't, and now I don't know if my own spelling is correct, but am too lazy to look it up.

I kept all the old letters I received--there are a lot, I was a prolific correspondent but have fallen off in recent years. I found some when I was last at my mom's house, but didn't have time to read through them.

...if you were asking me, that is RJG.

haha xpost I know!

: )

I don't mean that you can't have both. I can have both. So can you. I think so.

He used the phrase 'make out' again!

(x-post)

I think it was intentional. Which is part of what is strange in this thread, the pinefox complaining about poor spelling from the smitten while drowning us in commas.

I also have first drafts of my handwritten letters, but only because my handwriting is appalling beyond belief, and the first draft is at a speed somewhere between thought and neatness.

I don't think that commas, even if quite abundant, necessarily mean that grammar, let alone spelling, is awry.

But, Mr F., I like your phrase about the smitten.

That's not true, though, is it? Surely you of all people know. But perhaps it's the kind of thing that, actually, I know and you, in fact, don't.

(I do understand that you were just making a silly joke etc etc.)

The day my uncle accidently let off all the fireworks is also a fond memory, as I remember diving for cover army style, and marvelling at the massive explosion(s). My aunt, cousins etc just recall it as terrifying and anger inducing, and having major smoke inhallation.

I don't know how I've managed to get more cowardly as I've gotten older. It sucks really.

I have used talking, in their presence and on the telephone, and also email, to convey things. However, mainly, I have simply written and conveyed them to myself.

I have a shoebox.

damn you, nabisco.

I have now e-mailed the guy and asked if he still has the corrected love letters. He said they might be stuffed away in some box at his parents' house. He used this:
*smiles*
in the e-mail, and I contemplated sending it back with that horrible e-expression crossed out, but decided he might not find it funny. To be continued...

Tuomas, jag är mycket riktigt upptagen, och du verkar vara en hedervärd gay, haha!, men låt oss för all del fortsätta skriva tvetydiga saker på svenska, det har visst underhållningsvärde...

Javisst! Jag har inte varit tvetydig på svenska tidigare, men jag ska försöka, för underhållnings skull.

Vördsammast,

Din hamstern av kärlek

The puzzle story above reminds me:
One of these friends was a girl I'd worked with before leaving for national service and then studies. We sent each other letters, and after a while started amusing ourselves and each other with devices making them difficult to read -- continuing the letter on the inside of the envelope etc.

One day she sent me a letter cut up like a puzzle -- this took a *long* time to make legible, since she'd deviously cut the pieces between words. Clearly, retribution was in order. Considering a number of options of how to make my reply impractical, I finally decided on using a toilet roll (no negative symbolism intended, nor perceived by her, it was just a convenient roll of paper). The trick, of course, was to write *along* the paper.

In several lines (so she couldn't roll up the loose end as she read).

Starting from the inside of the roll.

Hee hee hee. I can't remember any of us trumping that one later.

Still, I'ts kinda cool having a secret language none of the other folks here understand.
-- Tuomas (tuomas...)

Känn er inte för säkra...

once, i found a sweet little book called 'all the ways i love you.' i was visiting a friend in new york, it must have been around valentines day. i got a fancy pen and crossed out 'love' on every page and wrote 'hate' instead. he claims this is the best 'letter' he's ever received. (it was something of an inside joke-- for my birthday/graduation he had flowers delivered to me at school with a big card that said 'happy birthday. i still hate you. love, mike')

aw.

RJG and Nabisco: I admire your humour, above.

Talar nagon engelska?