You can guess a client’s or remote colleague’s generation from their writing, and give them appropriate service or packaged data.

Mature/Traditional: No emoticons. The writer thinks smiley faces are unprofessional and signs of lazy writing. You’ll tend to see longer, more complex sentences, and spelling is really good. Paragraphing is usually excellent, with careful punctuation.

Boomer: A few emoticons. The writer thinks that emoticons solve the time-consuming problems of conveying tone in text, and prevent costly misunderstandings. Homophones are correct. Their/there is always right, but sometimes insure/assure/ensure are confused, as are effect/affect. Apostrophes are usually correct.

GenXer: Quite a lot of emoticons, but none in formal documents like reports, resumés etc. The writer sees emoticons as valuable communication devices in a world of global communication, second language users, and lots of quick written messages. The classic GenX error is that the opposite of “a little” is “alot” instead of “a lot”. This generation may muddle homophones: break/ brake, aloud/allowed, bored/board, or even flower and flour.

GenY/Millennial. The writer considers emoticons part of punctuation. Smiley faces, hearts and creative symbols clarify the writer’s intentions. Text message abbreviations appear, sometimes with all-lower case letters. Another common sight is text without paragraphing. Your and you’re may be used interchangeably. GenYs may not know how to set out a snail-mail business letter, or even a business envelope.

These are, of course, merely general pointers. Some matures can’t string a sentence together, and many Millennials write and edit with an elegance and precision I envy.