It seems strange that people allow other people to get away with emoticons. Emoticons are fine for anyone under the age of about 25. Until that age, the cost of someone mistaking something you write (e.g. taking it seriously if it's a joke and vice versa) is perhaps too high. Your social standing at that age is crucial, so I can understand it to an extent. Second, your writing skills are probably not fully formed so once again it is a little more permissible. But after the age of 30? It's worse than grammatical errors.
But everywhere I see it. From women and men, irrespective of age. It combines with this trend too, which is worrying.
Those who defend emoticons often say that it helps us understand what the writer is trying to convey. Well that's great, but we seemed to manage pretty well without them before this wretched epidemic. Shakespeare didn't help his actors by writing:
All? What, all my pretty chickens and their dam At one fell swoop? :(
Jane Austen didn't write:
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife ;)
No. Writers relied on their own skill and the intelligence of the reader to deduce their own meaning from what was written. In Shakespeare's case, this has led to glorious reinterpretation throughout the ages and a deepening of understanding of what it is to be human.
Emoticons are a safety barrier for toddlers, designed for those who can't write properly or don't trust the intelligence of their readers. Give power back to the reader and to the written word. Cast them off, and bravely step back into the future.
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3 comments:
i think you're missing the point (as usual). emoticons have been around for well longer than you've been online, old man. people like myself have been using them on the internet for over a decade. i don't see any reason why i should stop just because i'm over age 30? poppycock!
as you say, the problem with non face-to-face communication is that things are so easy to misunderstand. first of all, Shakespeare was not using computers/mobiles/typewriters to compose his works. second of all literature should not be confused with interpersonal communications. the average joe is NOT a writer, moreover, most writers are not Shakespeare nor Austen.
shouldn't you get yourself a hobby instead of whinging about what everyone else is [happily] up to?
Touche! :-)
Yes, I can quite see why you would use them.
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