ah english is a wondrous invention the language of shakespeare and dickens and the king james bible or at least it was until e-mail came along with its decapitating ways

APOLOGIES. I seem to have been infected by the very literary bug I was about to address. Apparently, e-mail is undoing our language and leading to all sorts of sloppiness, such as the loss of capital letters, poor spelling and haphazard punctuation.

According to this theory, workers at some British firms are so bad at writing e-mail messages that foreigners are now more adept at using English than we are. Some leading firms, including Marks & Spencer, Waterstone's, Tesco and Unilever, are said to be so alarmed they are investing money in teaching workers how to use English properly.

Teachers have been hired by Internet managers to explain GCSE-standard grammar, spelling and punctuation. Unilever has taken this even further and has hired poets and dramatists to help raise literary standards.

Alistair Creamer, who set up the firm's literacy scheme, maintains that many firms cannot get their message across via e-mail as well as they used to on the phone or face-to-face. "In some areas," he says, "e-mail is a complete joke, with no grammar, no capital letters, and words in the wrong places."

Wondering how to react to this development, it is possible to see benefits in both the old and the new. Certainly, if grammar collapses and language unravels into a tangle of meaningless, ill-considered phrases, we will have lost something that should be treasured. Fine language, not fancy but robust, interesting and colourful language, is a joy. Language that comm-unicates meaning while also being of itself entertaining or illuminating is to be cherished.

And yet. Well, yes, there is one of those coming. For the informality of e-mail can also be liberating, releasing us from the strict old ties that bind language, the stuffy etiquette that stifles freshness and immediacy.

But I do like the idea of hiring poets and dramatists to teach classes. After all, we should nurture those who use words well and with power.

As to e-mail sloppiness, I am not keen on all those sentences stripped of their capital letters. And the letters editor of this newspaper is unhappy with e-mail missives that arrive without a single capital letter. One such lower-case epistle appeared this week and was sent straight back to the sender, with a request for the capitals to be inserted.

In the end, we have to find a way to embrace the immediacy of e-mail, while not forgetting that although rules of grammar can be irritating, they are the rails on which language runs.

TO York Barbican Centre again. Last time round, Richard Thompson was the draw. On this occasion, a 12-year-old saxophone player was topping the bill, at least from where we were sitting.

That is the great joy of the Grand Summer Concert, put on by City of York Music Centre. Everyone has come to see a different child, and so seeks out their personal star. Our own stellar attraction did his turn wonderfully, at least to our partial eyes and ears.

Yet what really counts, and what makes this concert such an inspiration, is that all the musicians pull together. To watch so many young people playing music is an uplifting experience, the sort of cheerful, joyous event that gives life a little lift.

Truly, the music centre is a prized local institution.

If there is one tiny complaint, it is this: why isn't there something similar for adults, a re-starter band, perhaps? The Cole household could provide two have-a-go musicians, a rusty, dusty guitarist and a late-starting saxophonist (yes, two sax players, but only one instrument).