I think the widespread use of emoticons is yet another sign that letter-writing is a lost art.
Emoticons, eh? So that's what they're called! (Thanks, Penni, for deciphering some of them for me.)
I agree that they are barbarous, and that it is inconceivable that Elizabeth & Robert Browning should ever have used them in their correspondence with one another.
On the other hand, Elizabeth & Robert knew one another. Most people who participate in internet discourse (chat rooms, newsgroups, etc.) do not know one another(although sometimes they feel they do), and as a result misunderstandings occur. They are especially likely to occur when one participant makes a remark in jest, while the other takes the remark seriously.
This was brought home to me a while back when, in a communication to the Webmaster of a chronically buggy site, I wrote something to the effect that I was beginning to suspect that the programmers had gone on a toot. Of course, I was joking. Well -- the answer I got back! I was an ignoramus, a boob, a no-good etc., etc.
My son later advised me that I should have added a smiley face after my sentence, and he showed me how to make one. I have never used the symbol, but I can see the advantage of using it, along with <gggg>, <VBG>, etc., etc., to oil the wheels of internet discourse.
If these barbarous emoticons (love that word!) have served to prevent a few public spats, to forestall unseemly manifestations of information highway road rage, so much the better, I suppose.
But there goes the language....
jbe |
