BTW, LOL, ROFL, IMISU2 aren’t acronyms for civil libertarian groups, nor are they examples of car tag numbers.

They’re typical of the language people use in the digital information age.

For those who aren’t savvy in digital-speak, they mean “by the way,” “laughing out loud,” “rolling on the floor laughing” and “I miss you, too.”

The art of composing a thoughtful missive to send via the postal service has been all but lost in this age of instant messaging, coast-to-coast walkie-talkie phones and e-mail.

This is Universal Letter Writing Week, which Dr. Stanley J. Drake, founder of the International Society of Friendship and Goodwill, is credited for instituting as a way of reconnecting and rediscovering the joy of penning missives to loved ones.

Carey Burkett, columnist for Sojourners magazine, equates letter-writing with cooking.

“I’m guessing that many people who say ‘I’m too busy to cook’ are the same ones who don’t make the time for letters, either,” said Burkett. “Many of the reasons for why I cook mirror my motives for writing letters.

“Just as hot-out-of-the-oven bread gives wondrous pleasure to anyone lucky enough to be within nose-shot of that kitchen, so finding a plump, hand-lettered envelope after opening the mailbox and rifling through the junk is an equally exquisite pleasure. Like bread, letters are a tactile pleasure unduplicatable by the ring of the telephone or the blinding neon of a computer.”

Jacque McIntosh, retired Tahlequah Public School teacher, thoroughly appreciates receiving a hand-written letter.

“Just to get a letter in the mail makes you think ‘Wow!’” said McIntosh. “You’re so appreciative a person took time out of their day to write to you. We’re so mobile now, it’s difficult to find the time to write a thoughtful letter.”

McIntosh used to get letters on her birthday, but these days, it’s just a card in the mailbox.

“Letter-writing helped us uphold a certain number of skills,” she said. “We kept our punctuation, grammar and sentence structure sharp by writing letters, but we’ve dropped that ability just like we’ve dropped proper table manners.”

McIntosh believes letters serve a purpose beyond relaying information.

“I’ve always thought people write letters to help them solve a problem,” she said. “You know, writing out your thoughts helps smooth away the rough edges or helps you to make up your mind.”

Those who write letters also appreciate the utensils used in the craft, such as paper, pens and inks.

“You can order stationery from Hallmark here in town, but that’s about the only place anymore,” said McIntosh. “The Redmen Shoppe always kept writing paper and note cards, and a long time ago, they’d even have a printer’s plate made with your signature so you could have personalized items printed.”

McIntosh remembers a time when everyone carried a fountain pen, before ballpoints came into vogue.

“One of the biggest insults you could pay a person was to ask to use their [fountain] pen,” said McIntosh. “Fountain pens had a split in the nib. Over time and usage, that nib would shape to an individual’s personal style of writing. Asking to use a pen showed the signs of a person’s breeding.”

Dr. Sharon Winn, professor of English at Northeastern State University, believes letters are a key element in researching history.

“The key part of the word ‘history’ is ‘story,’” said Winn. “History books are based in truth, but the way people process information is different. Letters, on the other hand, are actual people [from the historical period] writing about actual events in their own words.”

McIntosh is concerned parts of history may be lost in the digital age.

“We’re losing our sense of history,” said McIntosh. “Just like we’ve lost a lot of our oral history. A lot of this 20- to 50-year-old generation doesn’t really have a sense of their place in history because of the loss of our writing skills. We’ve replaced [letter writing] with communication on the fly.”

Letters were used in literature, as well, said Winn.

“Some of the earliest novels were collections of letters,” said Winn. “They’re known as epistolary novels. A recent example of the epistolary style is ‘The Color Purple.’”

Winn doesn’t write letters by hand anymore, outside of the occasional thank-you note.

“I use e-mail mostly,” said Winn. “However, one thing I do is keep my e-mails for a long time. I probably have 200 or more e-mails that I don’t erase.”

C. Ian Murphy, administrator of www.correspondence.net, believes the Internet has prompted a rebirth of correspondence.

“It’s not the same - the artful penmanship is gone, it’s more casual and much faster,” said Murphy. “But sometimes we still, on occasion, have a glimpse of the artful letter from the past.”

Murphy created his Web site in celebration of such letters.

“Correspondence also hopes to encourage and inspire more correspondence - and better correspondence,” said Murphy. “We hope that after visiting this site, Web-denizens go out and write to an old friend or a new acquaintance.”