I can't believe that I am joining this silly thread. (:-) Now if I don't
put the emoticon there, the reader will think that I believe all in the
thread to be boorish boobs. On the contrary, it is the *subject* that I
think is pretty much a waste of time. In HTML I could use <I>italics</I> or
<B>bold face</B> or the like to show the emphases, but all we have in ASCII
are _underlines_, *stresses*, and (:-) to say that we mean nothing harsh and
CAPITALS to say that we do.
E-mail and lists are modes of writing intermediate between formal writing
and some of the illiteracy we sometimes are exposed to in a newspaper or on
TV. But, if we are to communicate as a friendly group on a list or between
friends in e-mail, we really do need some sort of mechanism to show the
winces, shrugs, smiles, and scowls else our communication would be rather
stern and drab.
On the other hand, as I look at the http emoticon catalogs referenced
yesterday, I wonder why so many people have so much time to waste -- except
for the (:@ that I saw and which I can now put to good use the next time
someone says "heat flow". (:-)
Does our literacy really depend on whether we use emoticons -- as opposed to
some of the beliefs we express? As to our children, they learn from us and
express themselves at about the same level as we do.
And thank heaven for Eudora's speling checker. (:-)