Bound to sound forever.

First, Ong must think that "writing is artificial" because his writing is completely horrid to read. While I may not be a great writer, especially while blogging and just typing away, I still have a tendency to edit everything that I read as a practice that I have been accustomed to ever since editing the school newspaper. There are copy and grammar errors everywhere, and this just makes it that much harder to read his work. In this case, I would have much prefered that he read his work aloud as opposed to reading his words on paper.

As for his assertion that "all verbal expression is bound to sound forever," I agree with many of the points that he makes. While reading words and seeing body expressions are truly important aspects of the world of communication, being able to hear someone speak is on an entirely different level. Listening to the emotion and the tone of what someone is saying gives a statement life, as opposed to one's imagination making up the tone that they think the writer is taking.