I loathe smiling faces. Not in real life. Or on human beings. I just hate those ghastly graphics that have taken over normal communication. The new four-letter word of the electronic world are smilies. They are being used for unimaginable rudeness but since they are disguised under the garb of a beaming face, you can’t even take umbrage. It seems the damned colon/bracket combination gives you a get out of jail card. Every time.

And it can’t be argued with. I mean someone who sends you a happy face—surely whatever they say cannot be construed as an insult. So what if the accompanying words have slashed and burnt your self esteem.

This ingenious, insidious little creature has also snuck into official communication. Somehow formal exchanges have expanded to include smiling faces, winking faces and sad faces. In fact, they are considered acceptable tools of conveying a message. I guess I missed the whole movement when personal emotions were deemed an essential part of professional missives. If I had a rupee for every single email I get with a blasted graphic—the smiley particularly pops up every time the sender has forgotten to do their job—I could quit my job and retire.

But this callous approach to communication got me thinking. Smilies are most often used by people who aren’t particularly good with the English language. Otherwise they would know there is a specific word for every single emotion/action in the dictionary and they would use it. The tragedy is that these days most users of the language are not competent to be using the language. But since they insist on forcing it they think that slang, short forms and cartoon characters are acceptable. They don’t even know that they are erring on the side of the heinous.

... contd.