--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, akasha_108 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> > > It's a problem. I share your frustration with it
> > > being misunderstood sometimes. Many people are
> > > so bloody SERIOUS that they just can't "get"
> > > someone who isn't, and who is laughing much of
> > > the time. So you try to use emoticons to get
> > > the point across, and it has the opposite effect,
> > > and they get even more uptight. Go figure.
> >
> > No, Barry, it doesn't make anybody uptight,
> > despite your fondest wishes. What it does is
> > make *you* look phony.
> >
> > It's like a standup comic who laughs at his own
> > jokes. The really funny comics are those who
> > stay deadpan.
> >
> > If you can't get your humor across without smileys,
> > it just wasn't very funny to begin with.
>
> I agree in concept. But in practice, sometimes statements can be
> read in different ways. Either as an insult, or as a funny barb.
> Some, I notice, rarely get the latter, unless it is BROADCAST
> clearly. <hey> joke coming up> ... <ok that was a joke>.
Sure. It's just that if you don't use the signals
selectively, they lose their meaning. It's like
putting an exclamation point after every sentence;
it gives each sentence the same emphasis, so the
exclams cancel each other out.
(I find that I tend to use smileys more as a kind of
punctuation than as signals of humor per se. I'm
not quite sure what I mean by that, but I don't
know how else to describe it...)
> One might argue it wasn't funny then. I disagree. Thats not always
> the case. I find, often, When the "serious reader" reads the barb /
> satire in a new light ("oh its a joke"), they do laugh. I have
> examples, I have names. (and thats a funny sentence -- but without
> voice nuance, many may read it as serious.) Without voice nuance,
> distinguishing between multiple possible interpreations is a
> problem.
I almost always know when you're being funny, whether
you use smileys or not.
Some of this has to do with who's doing it. When
someone who is routinely really nasty to others puts
smileys after all their barbs, it's obvious they're
not genuine. (And even if they were, that the person
would think such nastiness was funny doesn't say much
for their character.)
It also depends very much on the wording of the barb,
and the specific context. There's a just-over-the
edge quality to humorous barbs that tends to be
lacking in barbs that are meant seriously. When
smileys are put after the latter, there's an obvious
discordance; the tone just doesn't match.
And when someone who is normally light-hearted, and
usually delivers light-hearted barbs, suddenly
comes up with one that's serious in tone, and
surrounds it with smileys, it's even more discordant.
If the barb had been meant humorously, they could
easily have phrased it in their usual light-hearted
manner.
> One thing mature readers can do, is, before going off on some pitta
> rampage, is think "I am seeing this as an insult. I wonder if it can
> be seen in another light". Sort of like the foreground / background
> figures.
>
> Why some are predisposed to first see everything as insults, well
> thats another issue. It would probably take a good therapist to
> unravel it.
A lot of it depends on the relationship between the
person delivering the barb and the target. You and
I have a fairly cordial relationship, so if you were
to send a barb my way sans smiley, my first assumption
would be that it was humorous. So far, at least, it
would be unusual for you to say something really
nasty to me.
So there's a kind of benefit of the doubt involved.
With certain others here, it wouldn't make a lot of
sense to wonder whether they were being insulting
or not. If they do deliver a barb that they don't
mean to be taken seriously--which does happen
occasionally--they know how to phrase it in a way
that makes this clear, with or without smileys.
Obviously these aren't hard-and-fast dividing lines;
a lot of nuance is involved that can easily be
missed. Sometimes smileys help, sometimes they don't.
But the effect of *always* using smileys is the same
as that of *never* using smileys, except that the
former tends to make you look phony, whereas the
latter can make you look nastier than you mean to be
(which is the case with me sometimes, I'm afraid; I
should probably use them more often, but I tend to
avoid them because I have such a strong preference
for deadpan).
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