NEW USERS! INTRODUCE YOURSELVES!

Welcome aboard, Delli! Don't worry... If you MUST use smilies (a nasty habit I would never indulge, myself), nothing stops you from reusing them. When appropriate, of course...

Welcome!

So nice to see so many de-lurking. If there are any more of you out there, come join us! Not everyone bites (only E. Caiman Sands, but she's a gator, so we overlook it).

Welcome, greenroom.

Splendid name by the way, green is the finest of colours.

And don't listen to them. I'm a nice gator, honest!

Welcome aboard, Delli! Don't worry... If you MUST use smilies (a nasty habit I would never indulge, myself), nothing stops you from reusing them. When appropriate, of course...

Welcome, Delli.

And don't listen to grumpychops.

The smilies are hilarious. Use them as much as you like!

Welcome aboard, Delli!

Personally, my favorite is this one:

Welcome aboard, Delli!

Personally, my favorite is this one:

Perhaps that one is the zombony? That smiley had better watch out!

You know what I like about this place? The Smilies.

Welcome Delli! When I read your post, I thought you said "Similes," and I got all excited. Oh well, there are some fun smilies too.

You know what I like about this place? The Smilies.

Welcome Delli! When I read your post, I thought you said "Similes," and I got all excited. Oh well, there are some fun smilies too.

As excited as a two year old on raspberry fizzy?
Excited like a dog getting vacuumed?
As excited as an excited person?

...

Excited doesn't look like a word anymore.

Exactly. After a while it starts to look like "exited," as in "I exited the burning building like a scab falling off in the shower."

Smiling face.

My personal favourite: "The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't." Extra get-out-of-smiley-hell-free card to whomever knows what that's from. (may not work on zomboni[e]s.)

My personal favourite: "The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't." Extra get-out-of-smiley-hell-free card to whomever knows what that's from. (may not work on zomboni[e]s.)

I don't know the specific reference, but it sure sounds like something from Douglas Adams.

My personal favourite: "The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't." Extra get-out-of-smiley-hell-free card to whomever knows what that's from. (may not work on zomboni[e]s.)

I don't know the specific reference, but it sure sounds like something from Douglas Adams.

Yep, Douglas Adams. "From The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," I think. Great quote.

So, I'm new here.

I write, you know, stuff. Mostly soft SF, and some dabbling in fantasy. I've entered WotF twice this year. Got an HM with my first story. No word yet on the 4th quarter one. I live in Massachusetts. I took a really long break from writing and only got back into it a few years ago.

I've been lurking here for quite a while. I'm not good at smiley usage.

Cheers!

Hi JLM.
Sorry to hear about your smiley failings. Stick around long enough, I am sure you'll get better at it.

Grats on the HM. That's the top 5-10% of the contest!

Welcome, JLM, and know that at least one forum participant will be delighted to hear you are smilificationally challenged. (Not me; I suffer terrible angst that my posts will be misinterpreted unless I plaster smilies onto them. I refer to Martin Shoemaker.)

And I resist the urge to smile, here, now. ---> no smiley here <---

Thanks for the welcomes!

And have no fear, I appreciate a good smiley. I just freeze when it comes to using them myself. Which does lead to being seen as terminally serious, unfortunately, as I very rarely am.

Perhaps someone might direct me to a remedial smiley-user group? I promise to work very very hard on correct smiley usage.

Jen

Thanks for the welcomes!

And have no fear, I appreciate a good smiley. I just freeze when it comes to using them myself. Which does lead to being seen as terminally serious, unfortunately, as I very rarely am.

Perhaps someone might direct me to a remedial smiley-user group? I promise to work very very hard on correct smiley usage.

Jen

Welcome, Jen!

And resist the evil urge. Mark Twain never needed smilies, so you don't, either.

Welcome, JLM!

I grew up Massachusetts-adjacent, so

Welcome, Jen.

But oh dear, you can't manage smilies??
Have you been to a doctor?
It sounds like you have Smylexia.

Watch out for smiling gators!

I thought I'd just cast my lot with Martin on this one. It has nothing to do with our geographic proximity, though. What follows is a rant, not aimed at anyone, but instead at social phenomena I have observed.

I think my issue with emoticons and smileys (that's how I spell it, so sue me) and such things is that by trying to take the place of body language in face to face communication, they let us, as writers, off the hook in our correspondence. If I need a yellow winking face to let people know that I am trying to be subtly humorous, I ought to consider revising what I've written to successfully convey the humor with the intended subtlety. Now, I realize that every quick note we write does not justify the same scrutiny a speech, story, or poem does, but as a writer I take pride in everything I write, and if I write something I can't take pride in, I don't send it. And I don't take pride in ambiguity, unless it is intentional.

Another thing that bugs me (which I don't see much of here, interestingly--more on that in a moment) is the use of acronyms for phrases. One of the worst, in my curmudgeonly opinion, is LOL. Unless one literally laughs out loud while typing, I see no need to imply that one has. If my students laughed while typing half as much as they claim to in their e-mails, texts, tweets, etc., they would likely be carted off to the loony bin. So acronyms that stand in for smileys are just as bad as smileys, if not worse, in my book. At least with a laughing smiley, it is laughing at something, rather than implying that Iam actually laughing at that very moment.

Using acronyms to replace words we ought to have typed out just bug me on principal. Such acronyms encourage us to write and read (and think) in stock phrases. After all, no one will understand an acronym that replaces a novel or interesting turn of phrase--they only work if everyone uses the same phrasing. One could argue that the phrases that are thus truncated carry very little weight or importance anyway, but if that is the case, why use them at all?

As I said, I see far less of this sort of thing on this particular forum, probably because we all have a certain respect for language and how it is used. I dig that. So if you use smileys, fine. If you use them ironically, even better. If, however, I can catch the ironic humor in what you wrote from the diction and syntax alone, then I will be smiling to myself as I read, and maybe even laughing out loud.

I think my issue with emoticons and smileys (that's how I spell it, so sue me) and such things is that by trying to take the place of body language in face to face communication, they let us, as writers, off the hook in our correspondence. If I need a yellow winking face to let people know that I am trying to be subtly humorous, I ought to consider revising what I've written to successfully convey the humor with the intended subtlety.

To a certain extent, I agree with you. But I think many of the visual and audio cues we use to understand someone's intent (joking, angry, bored, whatever) are a priori absent from written communication. A case in point: I recently posted a comment on Annie's blog. I read her reply on my cell phone, which didn't (I later discovered) reproduce any of the smilies -- no missing image icon, no ascii smiley, nothing. And I thought, "Holy sh*t, she must hate me. What a really defensive, nasty response."

I spent a while thinking about how to respond, then went to her blog on my laptop. And, lo and behold, there were SMILEYS in her response to me...which totally changed the way I interpreted what she'd written.

(edited to add: apparently I am not attached to a single spelling of smilieyes...so sue me. 😉 )

Very good points, Patrick. It's one of the beefs I have with smilies. The argument goes, "It's hard to communicate mood in writing, so we need these tools in this modern age of email and texting." Yeah, because nobody ever communicated in writing before 1990. Some people have carried on lifelong conversations simply through letters, so this is hardly a new concern. As I somewhat jokingly said: "Mark Twain didn't need smilies, so you don't, either."

My other beef is I've been in forums (not this one, of course) where a smiley was a Get Out of Jail Free card for bullies. The bully would write the most vicious things and then finish with a smiley. When the victim complained, the bully would respond: "Hey, didn't you see the smiley? I was kidding! What are you, some kinda newb? Hey, everybody, look at the newb! He doesn't know that a smiley means he can't get all offended! Ya, what a newb!" Worse than a Get Out of Jail Free card, it was just another bullying tactic.

Being the argumentative cuss that I am, I called them out over that. I've had a bad taste in my mouth about smilies ever since. I've also had a bad taste for the terms "newbie" and "newb". Yes, they can be used in non-bullying ways; but every time I see them, I'm reminded of the bullies.

I don't expect anyone else to share these views; but their my views, and I'm stuck with them.

Oops! I didn't mean to imply any slam on Grayson in my reply. She just snuck in with an exact example of my first point.

I read her reply on my cell phone, which didn't (I later discovered) reproduce any of the smilies -- no missing image icon, no ascii smiley, nothing. And I thought, "Holy sh*t, she must hate me. What a really defensive, nasty response."

I spent a while thinking about how to respond, then went to her blog on my laptop. And, lo and behold, there were SMILEYS in her response to me...which totally changed the way I interpreted what she'd written.

Definitely a case where a smiley or two could change everything. Not to slight Annie, by any means, but doesn't this example sort of illustrate how, when we rely on that little yellow face to cast the right light on what we've said, we are less inclined to express ourselves as carefully as we otherwise might? Again, I certainly understand that we don't always have the luxury of time to revise and proofread every little thing we write to achieve the perfect tone and mood. And I have been known to be more than a little obsessive about such things (my brief flirtation with instant messaging was too much for my nerves).
I just think "I applaud the sentiment, but what are we to do?" means a lot more than but . And "I hate you " seems to have less inherent humor than an "I hate you" set in a context where the nudge and wink are implied by the words themselves. Maybe I just need to and bear it.

Oh, and I think I just found my favorite spelling of smileys yet: "smileyes" I think it was. It is perfect! Thanks Grayson!

To be or not to be

Definitely a case where a smiley or two could change everything. Not to slight Annie, by any means, but doesn't this example sort of illustrate how, when we rely on that little yellow face to cast the right light on what we've said, we are less inclined to express ourselves as carefully as we otherwise might? Again, I certainly understand that we don't always have the luxury of time to revise and proofread every little thing we write to achieve the perfect tone and mood. And I have been known to be more than a little obsessive about such things (my brief flirtation with instant messaging was too much for my nerves).
I just think "I applaud the sentiment, but what are we to do?" means a lot more than but . And "I hate you " seems to have less inherent humor than an "I hate you" set in a context where the nudge and wink are implied by the words themselves. Maybe I just need to and bear it.

To be or not to be

I have only one thing to say.

Well, I have to tell you, the animated smiley/ies drive me insane. In fact, I turned them off here for a while, but seeing wotf 008.gif et al nearly caused my poor little brain to combust from decipherous activity.

(edited to add space into file name to prevent the smileye it represents from showing!)

But what about the illustrators? It's their (our) job to communicate purely through images. To say things with a picture. Does that mean they're only allowed to communicate with smilies because that's truer to their skill-set and art form?

Like anything, even smilies can be abused. That doesn't make their presence or use invalid.

Devil's Advocate, ho! <img src="

In some ways I hate to admit it but I do agree with Martin ( ), that you shouldn't rely on a smiley entirely to get your mood across. I don't think I do that. I think I only use them to enhance or lighten further the mood I'm already trying to get across with words.

I know that Brad has edited the smilies in the past and I live in fear of them all disappearing at some unspecified point in the distant future (maybe when Martin usurps control of the forum ). Then my words would be left naked on the page, with no cuddly yellow ones to support them and maybe make their meaning even clearer.

In short, the words should always be the primary form of communication, and the smilies just the icing on top. The words are the cake, and the smilies are the sugar frosting.

And although the smilies are a bit of a prop, I think they are a hugely funny one and long may they live!

Yoiks! Didn't mean to stir the smiley(ie) hornet's nest.

I never used to either use emoticons or worry about my non-use of them until I started getting chastised for their lack in my emails. I've no strong feeling on them either way, though the bully example Martin(?) gives does irk me. When used for fun, I think they're groovy.

Jen

To be fair: smilies weren't the problem, bullies were the problem. If that forum hadn't had bullies, the smilies wouldn't have bothered me.

But now they're inextricably linked in my mind, giving me a psychological curse that some people around here (you know who you are) like to tweak now and then.