Emoticons, emails and letter writing

Level 2 Intermediate

Pre-reading task

Match these emoticons with their meanings.

}:-( I’m wearing glasses

;-) I’m undecided
8-) I’m married
0:-) Your toupee is blowing in the wind
:-)(-: I’m only joking!
:-\ The writer just made a sweet or innocent remark

2
Key words

Skim-read the article to find words that mean the following.

1. to show or tell – _______________ (para 1)

2. to put in – _______________ (para 1)
3. a feeling you experience – _______________ (para 1)
4. someone who is extremely interested in computers – _______________ (para 1)
5. not deliberate or planned – _______________ (para 2)
6. behaving or speaking in a way that seems rude – _______________ (para 2)
7. to feel sorry or sad about something you have done – _______________ (para 4)
8. the process of changing from one state to another – _______________ (para 4)
9. a strong sad or guilty feeling about something you have done – _______________ (para 6)
10. to destroy – _______________ (para 7)
11. without emotion – _______________ (para 8)
12. to let someone know you have received something they sent you – _______________ (para 9)
13. to communicate ideas or feelings indirectly – _______________ (para 10)

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NEWS LESSONS / Emoticons, emails and letter writing / Intermediate

Emoticons, emails and letter writing

Simon Jenkins
September 21, 2007
Have emails made us into unemotional
machines?

1. The emoticon is 25 years old. In 1982, a Pittsburgh professor, Scott Fahlman, noted that
his students’ emails lacked body language and voice tones and could not express greetings
and humour. So, the smiley was born, and with it a large amount of symbols intended to
insert normal human emotion into the cold alphabet. A–Z might have been fine for
Shakespeare, Milton, Keats and Shelley, but for today’s global nerd it is not good enough.
2. Early telegraphy had its own short forms and users soon realized that abbreviated
language could sometimes cause unintentional pain and embarrassment. Therefore, symbols
were used to soften remarks that might seem sarcastic or abrupt. The result was not just
smileys but frownies and various signs of confusion, love, anger and surprise.
3. There are 16 pages of emoticons in Andrew John’s Txtr’s A–Z – my favourite being }:-
( which means ‘your toupee is blowing in the wind’. These days many computers
automatically change the frownie into . In other words, and have become formal symbols in
Internet vocabulary.
4. I agree that there is a problem. I have often sent a personal email or text message which I
have regretted afterwards. The old-fashioned pen slowed the transition from spoken word
(and intended meaning) to script. It gave you time to think, as did the manual typewriter.
Writing involved effort. A word was thought about before being written on paper and sent
through the post.
5. These days, thoughts quickly change into finished, but imperfect sentences. As soon as
they are on screen they become real. And ‘send’ is always clicked too soon. There is no
wait for the post to go, no time to correct what you wrote. Nor is there any certainty that an
email has arrived, so we have to call and ask: “Did you get my email ... why didn’t you
reply?” And then we regret sending it off so quickly. We should have read it through one
more time.
6. How on earth did we manage in the past? Somehow we communicated love, hurt,
remorse, anger and joy with the help of the Oxford English Dictionary. We used quill, pen,
pencil, ballpoint, even typewriter, and if anything went wrong we had the telephone as
backup. But why is email so lacking in feeling that it needs its own additional emoticon
alphabet? How believable is ?
7. The authors of a book on ‘netiquette’ say that, “On email people aren’t quite
themselves ... they are angrier, less sympathetic, less aware, more easily wounded, even
more gossipy.” Some have even wrecked their marriages, lost their jobs and ended up in
jail.
8. Many of us do not know how to handle email. Do we start Dear Sir or Hi gorgeous, or
get straight down to business? Do we cover the screen with capital letters, exclamation
marks and emoticons in a desperate effort to explain what we mean? Do we end with Yours
sincerely, Kind regards or Byeee!? Even such simple words as please, thank you and sorry
 have a hundred different meanings when spoken but are toneless when lying flat on the
screen.
9. The truth is that, for other than routine messages and acknowledgements, email is not as
good as the telephone and the letter. Compared to the telephone, email distances us. It not
only removes the tone of your voice, it prevents people from interrupting or replying. It is a
one-way conversation, a monologue, with all the rudeness that can imply. Compared to a
letter, email is faster but has none of the humanity, not to mention politeness, of
handwriting.
10. Emails are bad at conveying humour or criticism, bad news or sympathy. The form is
too cold. Those who wish to communicate sincerity to another human being should
telephone.
11. Better still, clear your desk, take out a crisp sheet of note paper, pick up a pen and do
something you may not have done for ages. Write a proper letter. The recipient will be
amazed and delighted that you have taken the time. You will have written what you meant
to say, and I bet you won’t have used emoticons.

Comprehension check

Are these statements True (T) or False (F) according to the text?

1. The emoticon was invented because the alphabet doesn’t contain human emotion.
2. A student invented the smiley in an email to his professor.
3. Manual typewriters are better than computers for conveying emotion.
4. People often regret sending emails.
5. The author says that people often hold monologues on the phone.
6. Emails can be bad for your health and your love life.
7. Many people change their personality when they write emails.
8. The author suggests that we write more letters.
Vocabulary 1: Pronunciation

1. Put these words into the correct columns according to their pronunciation pattern.
2. Write in other words from the article that fit the pronunciation patterns.

imperfect emoticons sympathetic communicate exclamation sincerely

interrupt humanity recipient conversation additional abbreviate unintentional
embarrassment believable

oOo oOoo ooOo ooO ooOoo

Vocabulary 2: Word groups

Find words in the text that relate to emotions and writing equipment. Write them in the
tables below.

emotions
writing equipment
positive negative
traditional electronic