But what ill-mannered behavior may we expect of e-mail, texting, Twitter and all the rest of cyber twaddle?

A letter used to require a response, however terse and predictable. It used to be considered considerate to leave messages explaining why one is calling. But now I notice e-mail seems to have licensed people not to respond and voice messages often fail to explain their purpose, like extending one’s thumb and pinky and lip-syncing the words, Call me.

And as for the telephone tree, its purpose is clearly to discourage from pursuing the purpose of your call. It’s for getting rid of you, losing your call in an oblivion of lost connections, because the one thing the people who take your money don’t want to give you is service. Like the investment houses that promote investments and then bet their own money against them.

And how about all that customer service farmed out to India? I love those Indian-English accents, but when I’m trying to sort out a problem I don’t have the time or patience to comprehend them. And that’s just the point. Nobody wants you to comprehend them, except of course the nice Indians who are just trying to make a living.

The age of communication is rapidly becoming the age of miscommunication. Speed is becoming code for incivility. The devices we have designed to serve us and make our lives easier are becoming battering rams and stage sets. Smartphones and strollers equal exhibitionism and inconsiderateness, like blowing smoke into our faces.

Rudeness is given a cover story: hyper-communicativeness. Words become bullets or shields against civility. Are we seeing electronics as the heraldic devices of a new lordly class or an underclass of pretentious boobs and oafs? Not unlike the ones we’ve already sent to Washington, the ones who convinced us we would be the recipients of the trickledown of their rapacity?

I’m a poet, so I think about how language evolves. It’s clear to me e-mails and texting are changing the language. I’m not pessimistic about this. I’m not a language fuddy-duddy or snob. I love argot. I think language should change. It must change or the fate of Latin will befall it. English is astonishingly resilient and accommodating, albeit it’s not easy to master. But does accelerated evolution equate with bad manners and subterfuge?—Djelloul Marbrook

• See me speak with writer Mimi Moriarty
• Hear me read and talk about poetry
• Enjoy original music from Far From Algiers
• Tune in to Paul Elisha’s Bard’s Eye View as he interviews me on Veterans Day for WAMC, Northeastern Public Radio