h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

To rain on your parade: I think smileys are overused and often convey no meaning. Why can't the keyboard be used to express certain feelings? Good word choice usually does the trick, as evidenced by the hundreds of millions of books and other groups of written words available in the world today. Am I to wonder how offline writers have survived so long without the use of smileys and fear the day when smileys appear in the latest John Irving novel? Smileys are akin to hearts dotting the letter 'i'.

I take your point. Smileys can be overused, but they do perform a useful function, I think. As communication over the net becomes easier and faster, one can write things as if one is having a conversation, yet the result is preserved in text. Any hasty words are therefore set in stone, so to speak, and second thoughts only look like an apology. Leavening the text with can help defuse the situation. After all, most published text goes through several revisions before it is published, messages on the net do not get that luxury.
I'm not sure if that makes sense, but I am writing as I would speak.

I have a friend who crosses his eyes

x
I

but doesn't dot his t's

t'

or stem his x's

x
I