> Your other alternative is to just not use emoticons -- try to carry the meaning of what you are writing in your words. This can be difficult in the age of people using AOL-speak and sticking :) and :P to indicate that what they've just written is supposed to be humorous or sarcastic. I, for one, would think that Swift's "A Modest Proposal" would be ruined with emoticons sprinkled throughout the text.

I'm occasionally surprised in chat and on the forum when newbies take what I thought was an obvious joke at its face value and get offended. It doesn't happen with the regulars, and I know humour-detection is something that comes naturally with better knowledge of a person. Now that you mention this, I wonder if it's another factor. Perhaps some people now simply aren't capable of detecting nuances in writing unless they're given emoticons to indicate what their reaction should be.

Online chat isn't the equivalent of conversing in person because you lack all the visual signals which add the subtleties behind the actual words, and emoticons are a pretty poor substitute for those. When you talk in person, you're usually not even *aware* of all the other signals you're giving through your tone, your body language, your timing and everything. That's why I think writing skills for online conversations need to be *better* than average, not worse.

Brunnen-"or perhaps I need to try harder when I want to be funny"G