How do smileys fit in to the landscape of written punctuation?

It’s WAY too late at night to think about rules. There is only sleep. :-)

I feel like this everyday ”/

In a text message it can replace punctuation… in any other format I would tend to finish the sentence with normal punctuation, then place the smiley, as @ETpro did above. ;-)

I’d like to punctuate your face. ’-)

I suggest the punctuation goes wherever it impacts the emoticon the least. For example, supposing you were to use an emoticon within parentheses, it would be best practice to add a space following the emoticon “This is a sentence (and these are parentheses :) )”. It still looks weird, by no means is it correct, but it’s a smiley.

Also, it should be noted that there aren’t technically any rules which govern this kind of thing that are adhered to by anyone. Largely due to English having no governing body (which is awesome, by the way). This is why I can begin the next sentence with “Also, also,”.

Also, also, I’ll take an unrelated moment to mention that I love the Esperanto words for emoticon: ‘vizaĝeto’ which means ‘tiny face’, and ‘ridetulo’ which means ‘smiling one’.

Real life is better than tapping on a keyboard. Go out and socialise and don’t worry about being the virtual chatup king.
Its all fake & reality is honest.

I actually struggle with this because I use the damn “winky face” waaayyyyy too much. I also overuse parentheses, so I’m constantly butting the end of my winky face into the close of my clever parenthetical (if you know what I mean ;-) ). So, I tend to close the thought with the wink, provide some breathing room with a space and then close the paren. It’s exhausting!

I sometimes, or rather usually, replace the full stop with an emoticon like this :P

I use normal punctuation, followed by the emoticon. ;)
Parenthesis do mess me up, so I try like hell not to use emoticons inside them.

I use about three emoticons. I use :-) to indicate I really am happy about something (and I use it rarely).

I use ;-) to indicate I am flirting or making a funny.

I use :-( to indicate that something makes me unhappy. The happy and sad faces are forms of emphasis. The wink face is to clue someone in that they should see a hidden meaning in what I just wrote.

Oh yeah. I also use :-P to indicate when I am teasing someone.

I use this =======>>>>> to indicate that I am running away from emoticons.

I’m with @wundayatta

I use the same and a goodly amount of “lol’s & haha’s” to indicate humor or laughing at myself.

Better to overuse emoticons than to be misread, and therefore, misjudged.

@Coloma Just to add, I also know some people can think an overuse of smilies or emoticons to mean “ditziness” or lacking serious or deep thought and dare I say it, intelligence?

I try not to think that way, because it’s easy to judge someone without getting to know them.
Obviously the internet is a different environment, in that we only have our words to be judged on as a first impression. Anyway…

@Keep_on_running

I agree, though the proofs in the pudding.
Once one becomes more familiar with the individuals style and how they show up.
I happen to be bright and funny, not Einstein, but, if someone is annoyed at my liberal sprinkling of emoticons or ‘lol’s’ well…that’s their problem.
I use them liberally at times for the very reasons you mention, to make sure my intent is clear.

The internet is infamous for projection, so, the better we attempt to clarify our sentiments, the better, in my humble or not so humble opinion. ;-)

Indeed. ☺

B-) wearing my Kanye glasses.

I use emoticons as punctuation. Only with informal writing, of course =)

JilltheTooth punctuated my face last night and I emoted all over her. :P

@gailcalled it’s you is it?

>_<

I am an over-punctuator (made up word) so I use excessive punctuation (such as !!!?!?!?!?!) in addition to my smilies. I’d have to say that the punctuation applies to the sentence not to the paragraph so there could be multiple emotions expressed in the same paragraph especially if you have frequently swinging emotions like me!!

^-^

I don’t use emoticons very often. I think of them as being additional to and not part of the text. I use them mostly when emailing at work, as they are a quick way of letting colleagues know how I feel.

@fundevogel: Do I finish my sentence with the traditional punctuation and then leave a smiley or do I use a smiley in lieu of the conventional sentence-ender? Because it looks weird with both. Is the smiley part of the sentence? Is it it’s own weird little subjectless, predicateless sentence?

Great question! I’ve wondered the same things. Here are my arbitrary and personal “rules”:

* An emoticon doesn’t require its own punctuation.
* A emoticon may serve to replace the period at the end of a sentence, or a semicolon in the middle.
* Sentences that end in question marks or exclamation points should retain those marks. If it ruins the emoticon that follows, insert a few spaces or a line break before it.

Hope that helps :) Really! ;)

I’m referring to smileys made of 2 or 3 characters, which I use sparingly. I’ve never been a connoisseur of complicated schemes With even more elaborate imagery, all bets are off. MSN, for instance, used to change every instance of ” :) ” in my original email text into a grotesque cartoon gif, as subtle as a fire alarm. Fortunately you could turn this feature off. Graphical images, however, won’t be disturbed by adjacent text the way emoticons might, so you’d keep all original punctuation.