i am going to show my age now
but smileys. i hate smileys. they enrage me. there are literally hundreds of thousands of words in the english language and countless words in many other languages that you can use to express yourself. if you are too cretinous to make your meaning clear, you should not be texting or emailing at all.

fuck i am a grumpy old bitch these days...
( rachelswipe with a fork, Tue 13 Apr 2010, 21:02, 9 replies)

:P
Here have this and degrumpify @}-,-`-
('tin'tintin, Tue 13 Apr 2010, 21:09, closed)

thing is
human interaction takes a number of non-verbal cues. Even on the phone much is conveyed by your tone of voice. Without those cues meaning and context can be lost. It's the difference between an insult and a friendly jibe. Sure, the argument is that journalists and authors have done fine without them, but they can put stuff like '...he said sadly' or 'he winked'. Real-life conversations do not go like that, and so IM conversations, emails or texts (which are not novels) need something to replace them, or risk misunderstanding.

Although granted, sometimes their use is indeed cretinous and lazy. :)
(cypherspace is not a toaster, Tue 13 Apr 2010, 21:26, closed)

Makes me mad too

( enoughblueskyforsailorstrousers, Tue 13 Apr 2010, 21:38, closed)

Regard them as punctuation
as ! is an exclamation mark, so ;) is a 'this is not entirely serious' mark. Such things become necessary in a medium which does not always convey subtlety of meaning as well as it could. The alternative - strictly formal language in our informal communication - is too dull to contemplate. We'd sound like a bunch of lawyers, and who the fuck would want that?
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Tue 13 Apr 2010, 22:01, closed)

/\/\
-_-'
( Kroney, Tue 13 Apr 2010, 22:05, closed)

I think this
and yet I use smileys myself.
( Bob Todd whee, Tue 13 Apr 2010, 22:50, closed)

I'm not a fan of emoticons.
However, they are an evolution of the methods of communication.

Moreover as mentioned, it allows non-verbal cues to be added to online sentences in order to parse sense from what may be ambiguous meaning.

All that aside, I find them, text speak, internet jargon/slang, and the Americanisation and inherent bastardisation of my native tongue almost more than I can stomach.
(wuckfit Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori., Tue 13 Apr 2010, 22:59, closed)

I Love You
And quite agree.

Chambers next week?
(Suck it and Sea, Tue 13 Apr 2010, 23:12, closed)

^I think I'm with him ^

(shinypurplebit booked his tickets (yay) on, Tue 13 Apr 2010, 23:21, closed)