BBC Learning English 6 Minute English Keeping in touch
Kate:
Hello, I’m Kate Colin and this is 6 minute English. Today I'm joined by Jackie Dalton and we'll be talking about keeping in touch the old-fashioned way. Hi Jackie, a quick question for you to begin with….I'd like to know when was the last time you wrote a letter to a friend or relative and posted it? Not an email, but a real letter….
Jackie: Kate:
Yes, it certainly is because in this modern age of emails, texts, phones, Facebook and Skype, we seldom take the time to put pen to paper and write a letter. Can you tell me what 'put pen to paper' means?
Jackie:
Yes, this is an expression which means to deliberately write something down, a letter, a story or a poem perhaps. So putting 'pen to paper' to write a letter writing is certainly becoming less common these days. It's quite sad because until very recently, writing letters had been our main way of communicating with friends and family and now the tradition seems to be dying out.
Kate:
Yes, but now of course now we have so much technology available to us that we can communicate with people all over the world in a matter of seconds. It's so much easier than it used to be!
Jackie
Exactly, we no longer have to go to the bother of writing a letter, buying a stamp and posting it, we can just click a few buttons and our message is at its destination.
Well funnily enough, it was only about a week ago, which I think is quite unusual nowadays.