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The T Files: Emoticon As An Ending Paren?
Posted by Richard Fink in
16 Jan 2011 — 8:35pm
16 Jan 2011 — 8:35pm
An old friend of mine from Brooklyn, NY, Michelle Herman, professor of creative writing/comparative lit at Ohio State University posted using an emoticon as an ending paren.
As in her quip:
"OK, I hereby declare myself in charge of deciding how to punctuate using a parenthetical emoticon: said emoticon WILL do double-duty as a close-parenthesis. (And that is the last word on that subject :)"
Hmmmm... Whaddaya think? It is economical. (This is certainly a case for the Typophiles :-)
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16 Jan 2011 — 8:56pm
Reckon her right-leaning smileys will be expected to moonlight as opening parens, then.
17 Jan 2011 — 1:42am
I’ve always done that. Just like I wouldn’t add a period to a line ending with etc.
17 Jan 2011 — 2:33am
Hmm, I think I like the economy of it.
What about when you need to write 'I.T.' followed by a colon?
17 Jan 2011 — 5:46am
Well, times are hard.)
(that's a one-eyed man smiling)
17 Jan 2011 — 5:52am
I will use both period and colon, like this I.T., not a beauty, but clashing punctuation rarely is, but at least there isn’t a repetition like )) or .. (the latter case particularly unwanted, since it could be mistaken for an unborn ellypsis).
17 Jan 2011 — 5:53am
(But what if your emoticon isn't smiling? :^( ...)
17 Jan 2011 — 6:15am
It’s simple (like this)^: