Not the case. Words have never been sufficient. They are barely adequate. Try to use words to express the happiest you’ve ever felt - or the saddest. Attempt to describe the beauty of sun on snow using vowels and consonants and nouns and verbs.
The word ‘ineffable’ wouldn’t exist if one could actually convey all sensations, thoughts, impressions, etc. using words.
If that were true, we’d never, ever, have any misunderstandings. Ever.
I agree with all of this. They’re just another communication tool. That people want fewer tools in their toolbox is just silly. Sure, smiley abuse happens, but people abuse things like cApItAlIzAtIoN too. Should we eliminate that?
Nothing is ineffable, you just have to try harder to eff it.
(Apologies to Douglas Adams)
yes.
And yet I’d take this simile over a smiley any day.
Oh I dunno, I kind of liked the wall one, and the chainsaw one looked as if it would have some good uses!
Tough. If you don’t have the time to think out your reponse, then don’t respond.
I could spend $15 to post to this board and proofread my post. Why can’t others?
Please, no new smilies. I hate smilies. The only time I ever use them is when I anticipate that the person I’m speaking too is going to assume that the *lack *of a smiley is significant in and of itself. I fucking hate that! Too many people here consider the lack of a smiley as proof that you’re not joking, no matter how clearly your words indicate otherwise. I hate feeling forced in such a case to use a fucking smiley; I feel like someone’s holding a 45 to my temple screaming: DOT YOUR I’s WITH LITTLE HEARTS YOU FUCKING FUCK! The only time I wish we had a different smiley is in that exact situation; I wish there were a Deadpan Smiley–like the standard yellow guy, but with a flat line for a mouth. Maybe that would be a “what?” smiley. If we could trade a “what?” smiley for all these retarded smilies, I’d be happy. Although I do like the blowjob smiley; he makes me horny.
If only he had used a smilie…
Which is why I think the smilies we have are more than sufficient. We do not need a pukey smilie, a banging-my-head-against-the-wall smilie, or a chainsaw smilie. And we certainly do not need animated smilies of any kind. If you find that you can’t be subtle enough to get by without using one of those, then you’re not trying hard enough.
As controversial the argument regarding the effectiveness of smilies is, can we all agree that those that post two or more smilies directly adjacent to one another should be shot?
Furthermore, the roll-eyes smiley should be banned from the Internet. I don’t think I have ever seen a single instance on any messageboard where the roll-eyes smiley was used without the poster coming off like a complete dick. Don’t get me started when people use it as a single, standalone ‘rebuttal’ to someone’s argument. Every time I see that green bastard sitting alone under a huge swathe of quoted text I want to jump through that person’s monitor and bite their eyebrows off. If there’s a website dedicated to banning Comic Sans, there could and should be one for roll-eyes.
[insert semi-serious and selectively sarcastic smiley here]
Out of curiosity, do I “come off like a complete dick” here?
Oh, blow me. I proofread for a fucking living, dickhead, and go over each post I make four or five times to make sure it’s saying what I want it to say. Even then, I end up rejecting twice as many posts as those I actually send through. All that has nothing to do with being a skilled and erudite writer such that what one says has only one possible meaning even if one wishes to employ irony or sarcasm.
Not everything that’s written on a message board must be of earth-shattering impact, and if I can use a smiley in a light-hearted conversation to indicate a tone of voice rather than spend twice as much time to compose an essay on whether or not I thought the latest episode of Lost was cool, I will. Pretentious asshat.
Nah, you’re alright, kid. Forgive the exaggeration (ironically, I felt compelled to add that sarcasm disclaimer at the end incase anybody took offence). Of course, not everybody who uses roll-eyes is a dick, it’s just that, to me, it has been overused to the point that I can’t see it without making the connection to self-assured, smug idiots who toss out a roll-eyes or three as some kind of support to their argument. A roll-eyes may be appropriate for bad film-making or a politician’s rambling idiocy, but I feel that there has got to be a better way. I’m all roll-eyesed out.
It’s because of the negative connotations. It’s hard to get sick of the yellow smiling smiley because it’s always used in the context of kittens and mittens and cinammon buns and the like. And who could get sick of kittens and mittens and cinnamon buns?
Of course, it’s just a fracking message board anyway so perhaps I need to worry less about things. Roll on, brother.
:rolleyes:
:mad:
I wish we could add this Smiley.
If that were the case, the saying would be “A word is worth a thousand pictures.”
