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I have always been staunchly opposed to the use of emoticons. But, today, as I wrote back to my office-manager, a little note to say thank you for filling out my expense report for me....I realized that the only way to end the message was with a : ) . So I did. I realized that emoticons...aside from being blood-curdling-ly cute, are also, in a way, facillitating communication in emails.

I have heard many times about someone 'not understanding the tone of an email', and it's actually happened to me. It's easy to take a short email as a little stab, tonewise. But, that can all be solved with an emoticon.

Take, for example:

When will they be ready????

and

When will they be ready???? : )

or, I went to Mary's house. : )

and, I went to Mary's house. : (

That is POWERFUL!

Honestly, there has to be some way of studying this, or some thesis that needs to be written....I mean, we have punctuation for EVERYTHING. Except, our emotions. I wonder what books would be like if, instead of adjectives, we had emoticons. It would be so interesting....but I wonder if it would seem more surface, more robotic.

I guess in a way, emoticons are moving arabic based languages into the realm of pictograms....but not exactly, since emoticons are purely to convey the idea of HOW something is said. So...what are they? Are they punctuation, or something more....evolved or devolved?

Warrants further study. Stay tuned.

Above, my own personal favorite emoticon...which, I have realized when I made this image, looks a lot cuter on it's side. Upright, with the eyes at the top, it really looks sour!

Oh, and just for the record. I will ALWAYS be staunchly opposed to emails written in all lower case. Seriously...the little i, unless you are ee cummings, is a sign of a dearth in self-respect! ; /

Comments

[natalie]

Really interesting post!

I must admit to writing emails in lowercase

(I like your site, just discovered it through a link on design*sponge)

[susan]

Thanks Natalie! I definitely want to think more about emoticons.

I should keep my opinions about lowercase to myself! I have tons of friends who do it....and designwise, typography wise....gotta admit...it IS cute to write in lc. i will rethink. : )