What is the correct way of inserting smiley faces into parentheses?
All other grammatical errors I may have made aside, is it
“It isn’t really that important (who uses smiley faces in a serious passage anyway? :)).”
or
“Mods, please move this thread to IMHO if necessary (it may be too absurd for this forum :).”
The first may be more correct, but looks odd due to the double ).
Any ideas?
I usually put an extra space in there, like so: (insert amusing side comment here 
)
I usually use a space between the emoticon and right parentheses too (better than that dreaded double chin smiley ). Still doesn’t look completely right though.
I use ordinary smileys as parentheses. However, I add another parenthesis after Board smileys (since I know they will turn into little pictures )
Done
DrMatrix - General Questions Moderator
Why not use the other types of parentheses that are available on your keyboard: **{ } or ** ?
I either re-write the sentence - after all, use of the smileys is highly informal. (Or I might use a different smiley - : D ) Or maybe put it outside the paragraph (like this) : )
I do the same. I frequently see double parentheses in case citations, so it doesn’t look that weird to me.
–Cliffy