Named for a blend of the words “ emotion” and “icon,” emoticons are those little sideways faces you see sprinkled in e-mail, chat rooms, and message board posts. Often called smileys for the most common of the breed, the intent of these little visual elements is to provide in text what body language, facial expression, and tone of voice communicate in face-to-face conversations. In a text-based world, nuances are lost, and some visual clues help convey humor, sorrow, confusion, and other emotions we associate with smiles, frowns, and raised eyebrows.
 
 

 The Smiley War

Not all writers of e-mail are fans of emoticons. If you want to spark a hot debate, just open up the issue among Internet buffs. Although some find these cannily arranged punctuation marks liberating and inventive, others find them obnoxious and over-blown.

In 1994, Seattle Times columnist Paul Andrews equates emoticons with “crackling and popping on a cellular phone” and urges a smiley ban. Today, some people say smileys are a necessary spice to clarify obscure emotions. Other e-mail users say they are a desperate attempt on the part of the newbie to appear savvy. The anti-emoticon legions point out that for generations, writers have used language alone to convey nuance and emotion.
 
 

 Use Them Sparingly

Given the increasing focus on cleaning up e-mail and making it look more like a letter than a hastily scrawled grocery list of ideas, today’s Internet users seem to be moving away from smileys. Without doubt, emoticons and popular Internet acronyms will not disappear any time soon. But skillful e-mail writers will probably be increasingly attentive to the quality of their writing and increasingly demanding on themselves and others to use such devices sparingly and with clear intent. Probably nothing so profoundly annoys a recipient of an emoticon-laden missive than a smiley face where no reason for laughter is discernable or such a symbol is set after a clearly obnoxious and hostile comment.

The moral to this tale is to use emoticons carefully and in context. Don’t ask them to carry freight for which your text provides no foundation.