Copy pasta from OD:

That's right, eventually I do get around to entries I intended to write over a month ago. Like the entry I intended to write about how I believe that smileys sometimes work really well in conversations in lieu of punctuation. I briefly covered it, but there's more of an argument there than just what I wrote. I intend to cover the "more".

First, to clarify, I'm referring to the kind of smiley or emoticon that I have in my entry title. I'm referring to the textual smiley, not the cartoon bubble smiley. Those smileys are good if you're trying to amuse someone online outside of a conversation, but pictures don't really work in lieu of punctuation. They detract from whatever you're trying to say. My friend and I, between topics, occasionally regale each other with cute emoticons - bunnies, or goats, or "What is this thing doing!?" We don't use them as punctuation.

However, textual smileys or emoticons, I feel work well for punctuation in internet conversations, private messages through websites, inside of entries, or in emails. I will now tell you why I feel this way.

Let's use a very simplistic, easy to cover example. Say you're talking to someone about something. It doesn't matter what, but it's kind of complicated. Assume the conversation goes something like this: they say something, you're confused, they explain it better, and you say, "Ah, I see." This can come out in several ways. There's the "OH I GET IT NOW THAT'S AWESOME!!!" version, there's the "Oh, I get. Cool," version, and there's the "Uh-huh...I'm going to say 'I see' because I don't really know what else to say. You're kind of pathetic..." Your friend can tell which "Ah, I see," you're using based on your intonation, the look on your face, how enthused you seem, etc. But what if the same conversation happens over instant messaging? There are a number of things that, when said, can be taken in different ways. How you take it depends on those things I mentioned above. In IM, email, or any other online form of conversation - you don't have the luxury of sight and hearing. You have to textually convey the emotion behind what your'e saying.

Now, as a writer II have to do this anyway, all the time, through my books and short stories. Every time a character speaks, I have to find a way to convey that dialogue in such a way that the reader understands how character is speaking. However, I have one tool at my command that online conversations do not: dialogue tags. If I want to convey that something someone just said was spoken with an air of nervousness, I can write...

"__________," he said, tugging on his collar. He shifted feet.

When you're writing an email, speaking over IM, or writing an entry like I am now - you don't have that luxery either. No sight, no hearing, and no dialogue tags. You have to find some way to make the words themselves, and the punctuation, convey what you mean.

Enter the smiley. Again, I don't like the cartoonish faces - I feel they detract from the actual statement when they're placed alongside words, they often create a clunky offset from the rest of a paragraph when coming in at the end of a sentence (as in, the line spacing between lines...the actual picture length of a smiley is often longer than the character space a letter requires, so you'll have three lines of a paragraph tightly packed together and then the fourth line set of by almost twice that because of the emoticon. I also find them distracting in general, but that's just me.

However, the characters that make up a textual smiley are all normal punctuation marks, or sometimes letters themselves. ^_^ is a smiley someone I used to know from Germany used to use. Aside from the fact that it was immensely cute, it sometimes cut some of the things he said that could otherwise have been taken as cruel remarks, and showed me that he was either joking, or else meant it in the non-cruel manner. Sometimes, it served just to show me that he was smiling, which has a greater effect than just, "I'm smiling right now. I thought you should know."

Because these smileys are textual, they fit in with the rest of the sentence naturally, but at the same time they serve in the same way a dialogue tag or a smile in real life might. We're a very visual species...especially since the rise of television over books as an entertainment form. These visual clues in our online dialogue, where we lack any other visual image, helps clarify our speech.

We have visual clues in our writing already to show whether something spoken in a normal manner ( . ), whether it's spoken with a slight uptilt at the end that denotes curiosity (?), or whether it's spoken with a tone of excitement (!). We also have punctuation that denotes something that is said almost as a side note (these parenthases I've been using in this paragraph are the punctuation I'm referring to), or something that trails off (...), or something that pauses for a brief moment ( , ), or something that is cut of (— <--the elongated dash here, when it comes half way through a sentence and the next thing stated occurs in a new paragraph, shows someone either being cut off or cutting themselves off; it can also be used in the same way a set of commas or parenthases are used if it comes in the middle of a sentence, setting something off from the rest of the sentence - I've been using a space, dash, space as I just used there because on OD, you have to look up in the "insert special characters" menu in order to use that long dash). And then, we also have punctuation that denotes speaking ( "___").

We have a plethora of visual images already that serve the same purpose a simple pause in breath or change in voice might serve if we were speaking face to face with someone. These are used daily by authors of all types. But again, authors have dialogue tags that help with more complex emotions; IM, email, blog postings, etc., don't have dialogue tags.

A smiley can help with this situation. Take a look at the example above again. "Ah, I see." When I see it plain like that, I always think it means, "Uh-huh...I'm going to say 'I see' because I don't really know what else to say." But I always type it plain like that. I have a friend who then apologizes as if whatever he said was unimportant or bothersome in some way. I assume that means he views it the same way. It's easy to say, "Ah, I see" in an "OMG that's so cool!" manner...just put an exclamation mark or three after it. But what if you don't want to appear over enthusiastic, but don't want it to be misconstrued as you not giving a shit?

"Ah, I see =)"

It's toned down a bit from the exclamation point, but the smile shows that it's meant in a good way.

I wouldn't suggest that everybody must, should or even that I'd like to see everybody use smileys/emoticons in lieu of punctuation, but I do feel that they make certain statements less ambiguous, and I like that.

This is why I feel that smileys work quite well as punctuation in certain types of conversations. I would never suggest it for fiction or even creative nonfiction or official school or work based papers, but I do think that smileys have something to offer informal online conversations between friends.

My argument is done now. I hope you all have a good night =)

(See what I did there? The smiley shows that that last line was meant personally for you guys and said all in good fun, rather than being a more cold, aloof, official statement. I love how that worked out ^_^ )