The use of smileys is both adolescent and indicative of low IQ. In the case of the exclamation mark I encourage members to consult Fowler on its use. Perhaps I find myself at the wrong website.
gee, we knew there was a reason we didn't like all those emoticons... right ASp?
Emotion is different when one writes a story or scholarly work. There, the reader has a lot of context with which to discern emotional content. However, in these short exchanges, often of one or two sentences, it is critical to distinguish mood. Granted, it is sometimes overdone. However, it is important to distinguish between:
"Hey, you're a jerk."
vs.
"Hey, you're a jerk. ;-)"
In the first instance, it is a flamewar ready to happen. In the second, it is obviously someone pretending to disagree but really is not. Sure, someone could go through a lengthy explanation. It would not have the instant impact, and further, the internet is a new form of communication. You'll note it took a few thousand years for written communication to approach the emotional complexity of spoken. Net communication requires its own conventions and tools. It is neither immature nor a sign of intellectual inferiority. It is a sign of change.
Cheers,
Bryan
You are only wretched and unworthy if you choose to be.
<<You are only wretched and unworthy if you choose to be.>>
But only the wretched and unworthy would choose to be.
Perhaps I find myself at the wrong website. Yes, perhaps you are at the wrong website. This is a group that likes all manifestations of word usage and enjoy laughing together at every opportunity. If you'd enjoy a good snicker with your serious interchanges of ideas, welcome. If not, I'm sure there are many other sites you could visit.
Dear consuelo: are you sure that Smiley really takes the sting out of your words?
Just because jopublic stuck his neck out, must you chop it off? A smile for both
of you. I shyly confess I find Smileys more work than they are really worth. Another smile.
Thanks
jopublic for insulting my IQ even before you have even interacted with me!
Calling me adolescent, however, is a compliment. So
thanks! 
Oh, and
WELCOME 
to our fine, friendly forum, by the way!
Paranoia sets in and I check my post over at least five times before hitting the continue button... Oops! Maybe I shouldn't use ellipsis either. Is my IQ lower now? Again? [tongue-firmly-planted-in-cheek-e] Gosh, surely it can't get much lower than it already is with the volume of emoticons I've used in this post!
Let us not have a flamewar about Smileys and emoticons. I don't use either,
but it's mostly laziness. I just pretend I'm trying to improve my use of words
to the point the little accessories are unnecessary.
Aw, c'mon, Dr. Bill. Can't you give me just one little smiley emoticon to brighten up my day? Pretty please with sugar on it?
I still remember the Virginian in Owen Wister's book "Smile when you call me that, stranger!"
(Or I'll whip out my .45 and blow your head off!) I type touch, and can "say it with a smile"
a lot easier than getting into the Tips section and learning how to do Smileys. Another smile.
Let us not have a flamewar about Smileys and emoticons
Hey, Dr Bill, no flamewar going on. Just think it's a bit harsh to make a judgement on anyone's IQ based on whether they happen to put : and ) together to come up with :) Ya know? There's so much more to people than that. I thought I was doing that with a bit of humour to get my point across, but it seems that even emoticons can't save me from being misunderstood. 
[sigh-e]
Is everyone hyper-sensitive around here at the moment, or is it just me? Joke Joyce! Ha ha everybody! Remember? Laughter? Ha ha ha ... Love yas! Oh Sh*t! Another exclamation mark! Oops! Aargh...
I'm waiting to hear jopublic's take on the flak he's getting.
Dr Bill: waiting to hear from jopublic
Connie: need a sense of humor to thrive here so I sure hope he has a healthy one
I'm with Connie on this one, Bill. I'm not trying to give jopublic flak. (Where did that term come from BTW?) I'm just trying to let him know that he'll need to be tolerant of all types of people (emoticon-users and non) if he wishes to participate here. I'm not going to stop using them because someone thinks they are adolescent and indicate that I have a low IQ.
In hindsight, I should perhaps have just let his comments go but ... ah, what the hell - I couldn't resist! Perhaps I should merely have asked jopublic for some statistical data to back up his case. The research on something like that would be fascinating! Ha ha ha! More jokes everybody! Remember? Laughter?
Just in case anyone was intrigued, as I was:
From Merriam-Webster:
Main Entry: flak
Pronunciation: 'flak
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural flak
Etymology: German, from Fliegerabwehrkanonen, from Flieger flyer + Abwehr defense + Kanonen cannons
Date: 1938
1 : antiaircraft guns
2 : the bursting shells fired from flak
3 : CRITICISM, OPPOSITION
So - another loanword from German, then. Thanks everybody, I've learnt something today.
Connie, I'm offering 8 to 5 odds that Jopublic =/< 20 years old. That's the kind of comment that comes from the intolerant young parading some partial knowledge.
I ought to know -- I was like that at that age.
I'm offering 8 to 5 odds that Jopublic =/< 20 years old
That's funny, Bob! I'd be prepared to put money on jopublic being >= the age at which one becomes resistant to change. Oops! Just broke my promise to myself to not comment on this thread any more! Oh well, next year...
Eye...Cue...?
Whassat?
John Entwistle just died, and one of my favorite Who tunes is
"Whooooo are you? Who, who!? Who, who!?" Do you like The Who, jopublic?
And please excuse the interrobangs!
I h8 all this kiddy talk that peoples r using 2!!!!!!
jopubic - shall we's be sartin' our ownz site, aight? :-())
from Flieger flyer + Abwehr defense + Kanonen cannons
another loanword from German, then
A loan-acronym, indeed, hev!
I wonder (aloud) if there are many loan-acronyms?
intolerant young ..I ought to know -- I was like that at that age.Damn. And here am I finding myself getting more and more crotchety and reactionary the older I get. Must have taken a wrong turn somewhere.
both adolescent and indicative of low IQEgad! There are
high IQ adolescents out there now, jo?
When I was an adolescent the hormonal carpet-bombing put paid to most coherent thought, let alone IQ tests.
Not sure what my excuse is now.
I don't have any problem at all with adolescent behavior manifested at any age. Adolescent intent of that behavior is what is to be considered. Even our beloved wwh has behaved adolescently here to my complete delight! And wwh knows that I'm not insulting either him or his IQ.
milum often posts adolescent commentary here, and those are some of the best to read here. milum shore ain't got no IQ problem.
The information is fine on AWAD, but, me, I like the adolescence, too. Truth be known, I like the adolescent commentary probably best of all 'cause I know it's coming from people with IQs high as anybody'd need 'em to be.
W'ON: I liked your "eye cue" phrase! That is pretty potent to consider, you know, if you think about it?
Me, I don't use many emoticons. Not 'cause of refusing to be adolescent. My behavior here is already adolescent enough, thank goodness. I would like (big wish) for Anu to find a raspberry emoticon--one that bubbled its little raspberry-colored lips and tiny raspberry tongue. I'd use that one a lot!
Best regards,
Dub-Dub
hey, i am an adolescent, and i dont know whether to be hurt flattered or amused. i think ill stick with amused, chill jopublic, this is a message board not an essay board
( just couldn't resist)
wwh - I'll try to make this "flak free"."The use of smileys is both adolescent and indicative of low IQ".I'm glad you clarified that for us!
INCOMING!!!This sounds like a comment coming from someone who just finished adolescence.
Whew - that was close...Why would I seek usage *comments from someone who doesn't speak my language?
I heard the bullet whizz right past my ear on that one...If *they gave us "the bird" I wouldn't feel so obfuscative.
Welcome aboard, jopublic!
Life jackets on the right, please spit before you puke, and no smoking on deck after dark.However, it is my solemn *duty to come up with a nickname for anyone who can be so "touchy-feely" as quickly as you have... I dub thee... "Q-less".
hev - Sensitive schmensitive!
jopublic (Occupation Thinker.) pontificates Perhaps I find myself at the wrong website.
Thinker?! We don' need no stinkin' thinkers!!
:-p
The Lone Haranguer
I'm offering 8 to 5 odds that Jopublic =/< 20 years old.Now now, adolescents and adolesense are two different things. Age bashing is getting old.
The use of smileys is both adolescent and indicative of low IQ.Huh?
I don't understand.
And that's unusual, coz I is the smartest person on this board.
Let us go in peace to love and serve the board.
<<The use of smileys is both adolescent and indicative of low IQ [etc.] >>
In answer, let me paraphrase,
'An absolutely invaluable contribution to [boardacol]. Well done. Have you any idea of the price of potatos these days?'
***
Having said that
Anyone else mystified by jopu's blow from left field? I think he must have been rankled by Mav's response to his potato gunning in another thread ("I think I've Coined a New Expression"). The offending characters were [;p] (excluding brackets). Is that for "laugh?"
...The offending characters were [ ;p ] (excluding brackets). Is that for "laugh?" ...
I think that's supposed to be "a-wink,-while-sticking-your-tongue-out" ?
Not too hard to see how that could be taken as a put-down, I suppose. If you're feeling sensitive.
No surprise to any who know
and love you, Maverick!!!!!!
This would be an interesting
thread if it was not so manifestly
impossible to read without going mad!!!!!!
Give jopublic credit - this is the
w----i----d----e----s----t post I've ever seen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What Happened???? what is going on ????? How did it get so wide ????? and how can it be fixed ????? Can it be fixed?????
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Last time I took IQ test it was quite high (or so I was told.But then they do not want to upset idiots with truth, do they?)
The newcomer might like to look up the difference between IQ and the ability to discern appropriateness.
Also known as good taste.
Perhaps?
Can it be fixed?Yeah, get Rube to edit the occasional space into his smiley barricade!
No surprise to any who know
and love yoou, Maverick!
Maverick? You're out by about 300 hundred miles, wow. 'Tis the other ---rick (Aye, there's the rub!).
No idea how the thread got so wide. I thought that could only happen with URLs. Perhaps I should delete some of the smileys and regain my IQ.......
The use of smileys is both adolescent and
indicative of low IQ. Oh, really? Cite source please!
In the case of the exclamation mark
I encourage members to consult Fowler
on its use.While you are looking things up, refer to pedant
One who pays undue attention to book learning and formal rules.
One who exhibits one's learning or scholarship ostentatiously.
Obsolete. A schoolmaster.
[French pédant or Italian pedante (Frenchfrom Italian), possibly from Vulgar Latin *paedçns, *paedent-, present participle of *paedere, to instruct, probably from Greek paideuein, from pais, paid-, child. Perhaps I find myself at the wrong website. Shouldn't that have a ? at end and not a . (she asked pedantically ?)
pe·dan'ti·cal·ly adv.
SYNONYMS pedantic, academic, bookish, donnish, scholastic. These adjectives mean marked by a narrow, often tiresome focus on or display of learning and especially its trivial aspects: a pedantic writing style; an academic insistence on precision; a bookish vocabulary; donnish refinement of speech; scholastic and excessively subtle reasoning.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. You are most welcome here ! You will find that a keen sense of the absurd is a necessity.
RHUBY - How could I be so remiss.(((HUGS)))
and a big smack-a-rino kiss.
Plus apology.
Would a later buncha smiles cause the previous posts to go wide? Because this thread strarted out wide on my screen.
Very weird. The first time I checked in, this thread was normal. By yesterday afternoon, however, it had gone W-I-D-E.
>Very weird.
not so; all it takes is one wide post to make the entire thread wide. in this case it was the loooooooong string of unbroken smileys. subsequently, Rubrick broke up the string a bit, although it's still a little wide.
This has been THE most entertaining thread I've read. Thanks for the laughs!!
May I site your coments as evidence for the proposition?
You talk the talk, but do you walk the walk? Dont you just h8 this kind crap? Yes or no?
Are you learning all this invisible writing stuff at school?
You must let me know how its done so I can tell me kids. Thanks.
OK, JoPublic good buddy,
you can tell your me-kids
that you had a fine chance to understand
the nature of life and then
Milo said that
you lost it. -
.
I knew you were onside on this one Bill, despite the warnings in your private mails. No worries I'm flame proof. Take it easy, Jopo.
I heard a group of laughing professors
about thirty years ago
discussing Eye Cue.
One of them
had read of a study
in which it had been
proven--
as such studies seem
always to be able to prove--
that one could
predict
the average Eye Cue
of the group
by the number of times
EACH member laughed
during a
set time
of intercourse.
The higher
the average
of number of laughs,
the higher the average Eye
Cue
of
the
group.
Roll them smileys
out!
We'll just
be that
much
smarter!
[I cannot cite
my source.
Too long
ago,
and,
besides,
who believes
studies?
[raspberry-wannabe-e]
Test regards,
WordWise
two things:
1. I take back all I said about Rubrick fixing the wide post. It was only just a matter of a different browser -- in IE it's still reallllllllly wide.
2. hey jopublic: as a flatlander I can't tell which of your recent posts applies to whom -- but I guess it doesn't really matter a whit as each doesn't say much. [no wink]
One of them
had read of a study
in which it had been
proven--
as such studies seem
always to be able to prove--
that one could
predict
the average Eye Cue
of the group
by the number of times
EACH member laughed
during a
set time
of intercourse. Dear WW: was this a study by Masters and Johnson?
Why would you want to call someone a jerk and not mean it?
Thats funny is it?
Your ability to be condescending exceeds both your ability
argue a rigourous case and on the face of it, to make people laugh.
Your base assumption, despite the abcence of smilleys in my proposition, was that I agreed with it. This is not consistent with the thesis you put forward, and may well therefor be ill founded.
Cheers, Jopo.
1. I take back all I said about Rubrick fixing the wide post. It was only just a matter of a different browser -- in IE it's still reallllllllly wide.
Thanks, tsuwm. When I originally posted it was slightly wider than the screen width. Now it seems to be inordinately long thanks to jopublic's very mature post of a line of dots.
May I site your coments as evidence for the proposition?
Wow, jopublic. You write just like this Chicago so-called lawyer I know. Are you related to him?
Do you stay up all night writing your posts or do you just write them when the Chicago Internet cafés are open?
You're a thinker (or so you say). Ponder that.
One of them
had read of a study
in which it had been
proven--
as such studies seem
always to be able to prove--
that one could
predict
the average Eye Cue
of the group
by the number of times
EACH member laughed
during a
set time
of intercourse. Dear WW: was this a study by Masters and Johnson?
Dear wwh,
I don't know whose study it was, wwh. I doubt it was Masters and Johnson. Don't think their interest lay primarily with either laughter or Eye Cue.
Test regards,
WW
Yeah, get Rube to edit the occasional space into his smiley barricade!
'Tis done. Just that annoying line of dots left between us and a normal width thread.
Why would you want to call someone a jerk and not mean it?
Hang on a sec here, Jo - you're a Brit and a Liverpudlian and you're claiming not to understand irony? And also not to know the difference between being genuinely offensive and ribbing close friends?
Guaranteed that either you're on a major wind-up or you're not what you say you are in your profile. Which is it?
Erratum: for adolescent read immature or child like (typified, for example, by the use of 'invisible writing')
just turn the damn thread back
to a usable length and stop
pissing about scouse boy
Erratum: for adolescent read immature or child like (typified, for example, by the use of 'invisible writing')Here to serve. Jopo.
................................................................................................................Well, this is really mature
Sun just come up over Chicago, faker?
How could I resist such charm and eloquence and I was so pleased to see you did it without the use of even one smiley. Well done. Jopo.
Aw, c'mon, Dr. Bill. Can't you give me just one little smiley emoticon to brighten up my day? Pretty please with sugar on it?
Have I stumbled on an unregistered dating agency? That red tongue looks a bit iffy Dr Bill.....steer clear.
Your welcome :-) Hope you are still reading........ Jopo.
Dear jopo: If you open your mouth to me, I'll put a throat stick in it.
Say Ah! Or would you call it a "tongue depressor"?
Dear jopo: If you open your mouth to me, I'll put a throat stick in it.
Say Ah! Or would you call it a "tongue depressor"?
Your the doc. I would guess the correct term is dependent upon the proposed use. In either case sloppy ambiguity should be avoided.
Q-less says:
"Erratum: for adolescent read immature or child like (typified, for example, by the use of 'invisible writing')Erratum - I see you don't speak *my language either.
immature or
child like - Well, which one would you prefer? For good *reasons, they ain't mutually exclusive on this side of the pond.
BTW - Shouldn't "child like" be "child-like"? ...(typified, for example, by... - How many typifications does it take to destroy a stereotype?
...and finally (whew)...invisible writing - My apologies. Twas only my last vision test which informed me that I have a "
white-black deficiency".
. In either case sloppy ambiguity should be avoided.
It *sounds like "Qls" is a chat room refugee.
"Ambiguity is in the ears of the beholder" - musick ® 2002
Dear musick: Remember the trouble the auditors are in today.
My basic assumption is most people aren't wretched and unworthy. There are a lot (a *LOT*) of people who consider themselves wretched and unworthy who are not. They are beating themselves up for (over) nothing. Too many people consider themselves miserable for indulging in victimless crimes.
Cheers,
Bryan
You are only wretched and unworthy if you choose to be.
worked though didn't it?
Saturday 13th July 2002 - Castilia.
Touché.
I am indeed honoured to have the magister musicae respond to my post, and on this occasion, it would be churlish of me to offer a riposte. I look forward to raising swords with you again.
With respect, Jopo.
Dear Jopo: Castilia? There used to be a home-made soap called "Castile soap".
Can't remember reason for name, but deadliest threat from mothers was:
"I'll wash your mouth out with Castile soap!" (for profanity, etc.)
Castile soap uses Olive oil for the fat in the soap.. an was first mmade in the Castile region of spain.
it is a very mild soft soap and often used washing babies.
but because it is so soft, it easily lathers, so it would be very 'soapy' in your mouth!
I'm not much of a fan of novels, but just give me a chance to read a single chapter out of context and I'll show you a ...
http://www.pankrator.freeservers.com/darcages_book3_24.htmlHmmm! A world without walls? Hmmm...
Jopo - Now ya went and called me a magister and now I can't *legally use that nick anymore.
wwh - I still use Castile Soap... part of the *estate collections, dontcha know.
- I still use Castile SoapShall I get you lathered up then, love?
Hmmm! A world without walls? Hmmm...I think I'd be all for that. Of course, then I wouldn't have anything to bang on. Hmmmm....
Your the doc. I would guess the correct term is dependent upon the proposed use. In either case sloppy ambiguity should be avoidedOh, dear, jopo! Sloppiness of
all sorts should be avoided where possible - especially when complaining of it in others.