Ong 1st half

"Oral expression can exist and mostly has existed without any writing at all, writing never without orality."

This is an interesting quote from the first part of  Orality and Literacy. I suppose it is something we have all understood, but it is not however something most of us have thought about. It's hard to imagine this world without writing. There isn't even a time for most of us in which we can remember not knowing how to write. Neither writing nor speech will ever go extinct, however one can be more dominant than the other. For now, writing is definitely becoming a dominant form of communication. It isn't writing in the original sense, it is shortened forms.Yes, there are books as there always will be, but that is not my point. What I am referring to is social media, texting, emails, etc. Gone are the days where we wait by a phone for someone to call to make plans, now it's instantaneous through text messages. This generation has a much harder time going through processes such as interviews, calling strangers, and so on, because we are so used to the impersonal form of communication that is texting/emailing.

Even when we are to give a speech, it is written out in front of us. Ong refers to this as the term, "Oral Literacy."  It is hard for us to imagine a time before writing, and it is a frightening thought to consider going up in front of a crowd to give a speech without any form of written notes or power point. There are still a vast majority of languages that don't have a written form, but in our society it is impossible to imagine a world without it.