Now, in these days of continuous e-mail chatter, they are relics of a bygone era.
A day after he was forced to explain remarks he had made suggesting he was not fully supportive of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, Mr. Paul set off yet another round of Twitter, cable television and e-mail chatter by lambasting President Obama and his aides for insisting that BP be held accountable -- and pay -- for the oil spill cleanup and damage.
"There will be lots of e-mails or hallway chatter of 'Did he make you do that insane thing and now you can't walk?' " Mr. Vietor said.
With the military strained by its operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, talk of a return of the draft -- discontinued in 1973 during the Vietnam War -- has persisted, fueled by e-mail and Internet chatter warning of a new draft once the election is concluded.
Peter Rose, a spokesman for Goldman, says the e-mails "are idle chatter among junior people.
They also point out, in similarity to parents in a variety of other studies, the negative aspects including large volumes of e-mails, off-topic chatter and occasionally intensive quarrels in the discussion groups [ 33].
The vast majority of the e-mails contain normal office chatter, inflated into a genuine controversy by people who already had axes to grind.
It was a case with a pixelated paper trail seemingly like no other: Twitter feeds, Facebook posts, text messages, e-mails and other online chatter that together added up to a mountain of proof of Mr. Ravi's guilt, some jurors said.
The writer of the column, Gretchen Morgenson, characterized Merrill Lynch e-mail messages as "frat-house chatter" yet supports the New York attorney general's successful efforts to coerce $100 million from the firm.
And employees will be able to receive a daily or weekly e-mail digest of the latest Chatter posts from their feed or group feeds.
The day the theft was reported, Mr. Brock's e-mail and Twitter feed pinged constantly with chatter and speculation about who might have been responsible.
