Emoticons

I suppose emoticons are a necessary evil. I use them myself very infrequently and always punish myself slightly afterwards.

For example, If I'm drinking some hot tea I might hold it til it burns a little. Or I might add a little bit of salt to make the tea slightly salty-ish. This can be offset by sugar but (not being in the building trade) I don't take sugar either. So unless I get the salt-sugar balance exactly right (to delete each other) I just end up with salty-ish/sugary-ish tea. And that can be excessive punishment, really, for a relatively minor emoticon offence.

I only use emoticons when I'm absolutely sure the person I'm talking to won't understand my meaning. For example, if I you asked me if I wanted to go on holiday with you, I would probably say:

Yes ok that's sounds great

You might, incorrectly, think I meant:

Yes ok that's sounds great

(You idiot!)

But to confer my real meaning I might say,

Yes ok that's sounds great

(Not sure why I've gone all blue about it)

Then you'd know I didn't want to go on holiday with you at all.

So they can be useful on occasions when you want to say something but mean something entirely different. Otherwise I don't use them at all. And I certainly never say the word emoticon out loud. I heard someone doing that the other day and, frankly, it chilled me to the bone.

Just one man's opinion of course. If you want to use them, fine go ahead. They're just not my cup of tea. That's my cup of tea up there .