Yankee in a Red State

The ramblings of an expatriate New Yorker in the South ~ formerly known as The Kudzu Kronikles ~

How Smilies Save My Ass

I am a frowner.

It's my face, honestly, and the way I was made thanks to random couplings of DNA.

Well, let's face it.  I scowl.  I look downright mean.  Especially when I am concentrating.

But "mean" is far from the truth and my face, I guess, is a mask for my sense of inner peace and contentment. Yes, I have heard "it takes more muscles to frown than it takes to smile" so many times I could retch violently.  This may be true, physiologically, but not in my case, nor my sisters' nor my mother's, nor my mother's father.  Even when we are smiling, our brows are naturally downsloping and ostensibly knitted.

Ergo ... people tend to think we are a serious and somber bunch (they have never sat at our dinner table when the entire family gets together) and that the things we write, specifically emails, are just as somber as our countenances.  This is where smilies have saved my ass.

In fear of offending people (my habit of daily sarcasm helps also), I have taken to putting smilies into my correspondence.  While teaching my Professional Writing class, I explained to my students that "smilies"  (emoticons) have no place in professional communications.  But then I got to thinking about the fact that I have often used them in an attempt to convey general happiness when i wish to seem friendly toward a colleague.  Is this wrong?  If I leave the smilies off people might think I'm being grumpy or that I do not care about their reply.  Sometimes I just wish to send a droll statement that I find is amusing (because we do share listservs between instructors and grad students and because sometimes one HAS to break the academic monotony) (this is not always received well either). 

I admit to being mischievous and irreverent, therefore my penchant for posting the occasional unprofessionalism.   I also ran with scissors and was always marked as "a good student BUT ..."

So I believe in using smilies liberally.  This way there are no misunderstandings or misreadings.  I say that we need to loosen the rules of E-mail netiquette and allow the cheerful buggers if only because the serve to underscore the intent behind an electronic missive.   The world could be a lot worse off without them.

posted by: willothwisp at 16:30 | link | comments (5) |