Me and a collegue at work discussed the other day that today we use much more written text than before. We communicate in writing all the time on our phones, computers, tablets, phablets and more. Some people today send hundreds of SMS every week, you might have a blog, use Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Instagram, Vibre, Google Hangouts, join in a forum (or ten!) and so fourth. I guess the use of IRC and Usenet/News no longer qualifies to be on this list but they were absolutely part of the evolution for the written text on the Internet.
The use of emoticons and abbrevations came to be so we could replace moods, feelings or state of mind as that is more complicated, time consuming, and not the least, space demanding than the use of emoticons. SMS kind of introduced the use of emoticons to the general “non-nerd” public due to its limit of 160 characters per message. This limit has been washed out last few years as the costs for messages has dropped like a sinking rock, and the phones conseal the fact that the message consists of multiple SMS’s. On that note, for me it is quite time consuming to write on smart-phones and tablets compared to writing with a pen or keyboard, so from that perspective emoticons and abbrevations is a good thing. So I guess there is a good reason it all “came to be”, but what would a world be with no use of emoticons?
| With Emoticons | No Emoticons |
|---|---|
| Could you pick up some milk on the way home? :-* | Could you please pick up some milk on the way home my love – he said sending her a kiss. |
| I was at the tivoly today :O almost killed myself 😉 | I was at the tivoly today, what a thrill! At some point I really was worried that I might get hurt or even killed – she said with a grin on her face. |
| Got my new car today :'( | I got my new car today – he said with a sad look on his face, something was obviously bothering him. |
| I saw the new Jim Carey movie today ROLFLOL B-) | I saw the new Jim Carey movie today, what a funny movie! I was rolling on the floor laughing my head off! Very cool movie indeed, recommended! |
| OK 😛 | OK – he said with a smart look on his face. |
| U coming *flirting* 🙂 | He looked at her with his seductive eyes, and asked her, "are you coming?". His eyes was hinting at the door and she smiled at him … |
| Had some great pasta for lunch today :-\ | The irony was thick when he said "I had some great pasta for lunch today." |
Maybe you have better examples?
The examples are maybe not the best, but they venture to prove a point. Keep in mind that more than 80% of communication is not the words but the visual representation, the mood, the tone of voice etc, I am not surprised that we use all the dirty tricks we can find to spice up our written language. Also kids and teenagers that might still not have the vocabulary of adults want to express themselves and they play a huge role in the development of our written language.
My conclusion is that emoticons and abbreviations have come to stay and they serve a purpose for sure. We could maybe be better at actually writing proper text when expressing ourselves in written form. My native language is not English so I might not be as articulate as native writers but at least if we make an effort written text can be very colorful, even with the absence of emoticons.
I do wonder though, when does the emoticons enter into the dictionaries?
Another topic is of course what all the emoticons and abbreviations mean, but it was not my intention to cover that part, many good sources on the internet, so Google it 🙂
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