Guess how many emails I sent yesterday? Actually don’t bother to guess — that was a trick question. Yesterday, I wasn’t online. I spent all day trying to buy a summer wardrobe, only to return with a packet of spare buttons (all sizes), a new blind for the office, a bottle of perfume that, on reflection, smells like Bournvita, and a tray.

The day before, however — a normal working day — I sent 43 emails. At the time, I was under the impression that every one I was writing was fairly iconic emailing, in its way — adrenalised yet tender, admirably concise in a time-poor world, yet still redolent, in its cadence, of the great letter-writers of the 19th century.

In reality, going back through my Sent box, I note that most of them consist simply of “Hahaha, cxxx”. Obviously there are variants on that — “Haha don’t tell Joe, cxxx”, “Hahaha no seriously, I’m going to kill you, cxxx,”, “Hahaha is that the VAT return for the third quarter? cxxx”, but, essentially, I use the greatest advancement in communication since the development of language to disseminate slightly nervous laughter, and then three kisses.

Looking back over sent emails is something one does rarely. Let’s be honest, the only time you ever venture into your Sent box is when you’re a) fearful about what happened in the “hazy” Pernod period between 12.40am and 3am or, b) being sued. In many ways, emailing is like wave-particle duality. We are all both senders (wave) and receivers (particle). We display completely differing behaviours — wave/particle — depending on which we are engaged in. When we send an e-mail, it’s in a moment of careless hurry. It doesn’t really mean that much. It’s just a communicative trinket. When we read an e-mail, however, it still feels like a proper old-fashioned letter. We receive it with a degree of excitement, anticipation and vulnerability.

It was with these considerations in mind that Will Schwalbe and Dave Shipley put together the help-book, Send: The How, Why, When — And When Not — Of Email , due to be published here next month. In the States, the book entered the Top Ten within 48 hours of publication — an acknowledgement that, as we invent ever more complex ways of communicating, we might also need to invent new rules to govern them, too. While the great majority of the book could be covered in the simple instruction “Be polite”, there are a few nuggets of e-mail-specific counselling. One should “cc” in order of seniority, apparently — the Pope before Archbishops when you FW the new Boden catalogue. It’s also a no-go to repeated hit “reply”, ending up with the subject field reading “re:re:re:re:re:re:re:re Tuesday”. Although the authors don’t actually say why this is a bad thing, it might be because it makes your inbox read as if it’s been taken over by backing singers on Aretha Franklin’s R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

My greatest sadness with the book, however, is its all-too-brief coverage of text-speak, modish abbreviations, capital letters, exclamation marks and emoticons. A mere eight pages cover the world of l8er, LOL, ARE YOU INSANE!!!! and :-). Personally, it’s these aspects of online communication that I enjoy the most. For where once the English language was being freshly minted by Shakespeare (moonbeam, dwindle, tranquil, remorseless, puking, bloodstained, torture, radiance) in possibly the greatest lexical burst humanity has ever witnessed, it is now being created by 15-year-old gamers, horny thirtysomethings in chatrooms, and bored friends emailing each other.

Take, for instance, ROFL. Previously an acronym for “Rolling on floor laughing” — a signal you had enjoyed someone else’s joke — it was strictly the province of nerdy teenagers. In recent weeks, however, the mums on mumsnet.com have taken the word, expanded it, in a sensible way — Roffle — and started using it as an onomatopoeic noun: “Come on, it’ll be a roffle.” As roffle is one of those pleasing words that make you instantly cheerful — like “charabanc” and “fandango” — I’m already in great danger of overusing it. This wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t have to spend three minutes explaining what I was actually saying to anyone who doesn’t post on mumsnet. Still, I expect Shakespeare had to go through exactly the same thing with the word “metamorphoses”, so we’re not alone.

Similarly, whereas one would presume that the emergence of emoticons was actually reducing our vocabulary (:-) :-o), I have found it has, for me, opened up a small side-line in verbal expression. Having quite quickly tired of using emoticons to put an ironic topspin on something quite vile — “Why don’t you cut yr head off? :-)” — I’ve recently started unemoticoning them, and turning them back into sentences (“I’m not going to be able to come, sad emoticon face.” “Shall we go to Nando’s? Homer Simpson emoticon face.”)

Of course, from a writer’s point of view, the most enjoyable thing about emails is that structure and planning are completely unnecessary. You never really have to come to any stirring conclusion, joyous farewell paragraph or well-considered summing up. You can just stop typing.

Hahaha cxxx.

cc: Radio 4 plays department

Of course, the other great thing about emailing is that it allows you, should you wish, to turn each one into a small, giddy radio play — all with the simple use of two asterisks. Thus: “*Narrows eyes, puts head down, starts running down the street, arms pumping with rhythmic menace, like the T-1000 robot in Terminator 2. Kicks down door, pulls out telephone wires, issues ultimatum in a voice like 1,000 pitiless souls.* So, can I have that hedge-trimmer back before you go on holiday, then?”

Or “*Puts on lucky pants, slicks back hair, applies Lynx Africa, puts 12-pack of Durex in the back pocket, books the next day off work, writes SEX NIGHT!!! on calendar.* So, shall we have that drink, then? No strings attached, like.”

This allows you to conjure up a scenario that would seem possibly inappropriate in a letter, bizarre in a conversation and frankly demented in a phone call — all for the price of two asterisks. On top of this, you spend four times as long emailing friends on company time, while roffling away to yourself. You just can’t argue with a diachronic linguistic shift like that.

fw: You’re fired, xxc

The most heartening moment in Send is the news that, in the past, people have been fired from their jobs for forwarding those vexatious “joke for the day” emails. *Punches air, does one-woman Mexican wave, lights cigar, starts fireworks display, smashes bottle of champagne against a boat called the HMS HURRAH!, gets momentary glimpse of the Creator giving a sly thumbs-up and a wink.* Good.

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