OMG In NY Review of Books: Priceless

Janet Malcolm continues to be one of Cinecultist's journalism heroes. She's 73 and she used OMG in the kicker from her NYRB article on Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home by David Shipley and Will Schwalbe. How utterly awesome is that? It just goes to show that at no matter what age, a really fine cultural critic has their finger on the pulse and the most common colloquialisms at their disposal.

"Interestingly, the models Shipley and Schwalbe choose to illustrate their section "How to Write a Perfect Email" were written by twelve-year-olds. The really young, evidently, don't need the help the rest of us do; like Blakean innocents, they are untouched by email's evil. Their harmless chatter ("OMG! I was playing yesterday, when this really CUTE boy rode up on his bike") is reminiscent of the notes we used to pass in class, which are, come to think of it, the precursors of email: hastily written, instantly delivered and replied to, and, if intercepted by the wrong person, mortifying. As the really young become merely young it will be interesting to see what happens. Will their childish babbling evolve into decent writing? Does writing a lot lead to writing well? Even (OMG!) on email?"