I read something on CNET recently (okay, about a month ago, if you want to be picky) about the death of the smiley.* Personally, I’m in at least two minds about the topic.

As the recent call for a Blogging Code of Conduct demonstrates, even the most rational and mild-mannered amongst us can come unstuck online. Anonymity lets us say whatever we please with little fear of rebuke or consequence; similarly, it can be difficult to interpret tone online, and to take to heart something said (or, typed, anyway) lightly. Emoticons seem to be one way of fixing this problem — though writing more thoughtfully and clearly might be a better solution — and, moreover, they’re something that everyone seems to get the hang of right off the bat.

Internet acronyms can be difficult to figure out, since their meaning isn’t immediately apparent, and most of them have evolved to mean something completely different from their original meaning anyway. When was the last time you saw someone use “LOL” to actually mean they found something funny, rather than to be mocking/sarcastic/intentionally and painfully ironic? Emoticons, on the other hand, are a lot easier: you just have to squint, or maybe turn your head slightly to one side.

I’ve always felt a little uneasy about using them, though. My inner snob insisted on feeling that punctuation should be used to, well, punctuate; I love semi-colons, particularly, and using them to represent one half of an ASCII lascivious wink seemed somehow perverse. MSN Messenger’s obnoxious insistence on turning these symbols into hideous bright yellow faces didn’t help matters; AIM’s smiley set is even worse, and even Microsoft Word is at it. Suddenly, there are grinning faces everywhere, gurning away at me…

But reading that quote from the New York Times cited by CNET made me reconsider. (Oh, don’t get me wrong, I used smilies anyway; I usually just felt a bit guilty afterwards.) In 1969, Vladimir Nabokov was asked how he ranked himself among the greatest writers ever, and responded that “I often think there should exist a special typographical sign for a smile