This is no secret. They are a putrid blight upon our technologically driven society, undermining hundreds of years of progress in the development of the english language, and sending us back to the ancient world where man crudely expressed his thoughts with hieroglyphics. If I were to use one word to sum up what emoticons are I would simply state: "crutches". They are crutches that people use to prop up thier flimsy writing skills. Using an emoticon is like broadcasting to the world: "I CAN'T PROPERLY EXPRESS MY EMOTIONS THROUGH MY WORDS SO I DECIDED TO EXPRESS THEM USING THIS CRAPPY, LOW-RES SMILEY FACE!". Sometimes an emoticon is used after a piece of humerous writing. In which case all the humor that may have existed suddenly dies. To illustrate this let's look at a piece of writing by retired humor columnist Dave Barry:
"It's time once again for the Winter Olympics -- three magical weeks during which all of America will gather in front of the television set to watch American Idol.
But during the commercials, some of us will also tune in to the Winter Olympics, a quadrennial competition that answers, once and for all, questions that burn in the brains of every true sports fan, such as: (1) Who will claim ''bragging rights'' as the world's best in the individual, sprint and team Nordic Combined? (2) What, exactly, IS the Nordic Combined? (3) Who the heck are the ''Nordics,'' anyway?"
Now let's see that again, but this time with emoticons.
"It's time once again for the Winter Olympics -- three magical weeks during which all of America will gather in front of the television set to watch American Idol. ;)
But during the commercials, some of us will also tune in to the Winter Olympics :), a quadrennial competition that answers, once and for all, questions that burn in the brains of every true sports fan ;-), such as: (1) Who will claim ''bragging rights'' as the world's best in the individual, sprint and team Nordic Combined? (2) What, exactly, IS the Nordic Combined? (3) Who the heck are the ''Nordics,'' anyway? :D"
As you can see, they shoot the humor right out of the water.
So please... stop polluting the world wide web with the acidic evil of tacky smily faces.
If you don't, I'll have no choice but to send John McLaughlin to take you on, and take you OUT, foo.
Actually, I thought that the emoticons made the article MUCH more humerous...hehehehe
ReplyDelete;)
Ok Abe, I'll concede that smilies are used too often in netspeak these days. Perhaps the English language is decaying before our eyes - but then, I imagine those who saw contractions "it's" instead of "it is", "we're" instead of "we're", etc, thought exactly the same thing. If you think about it, those are shortcuts exactly like smiley faces, and are, in the same way, lazy.
ReplyDeleteSo I wouldn't sweat it Abe. Either they won't spread through to the mainline of society, (Which I find the most likely option) or they will, in which case in a few decades, they'll be wondering how you could write without them.
I wonder what Lord of the Rings would be like with built in smiley faces....
Anyway, later!
Lord of the Rings with emoticons? Here's a sample:
ReplyDelete"The rumours that you have heard are true: he has indeed arisen again and left his holod in Mirkwood and returned to his ancient fastness in the Dark Tower of Mordor. :-( "
"Gollum? Do you mean that this is the very Gollum-creature that Bilbo met? How Loathsome! >:( "
"Me go and see Elves and all! Hooray! :D"
The emoticons did not make the story any less humorous. Ignoring them isn't that difficult.
ReplyDelete