I’m Not Like That, Really
Today was the presentation of that paper I wrote a few weeks ago. (You remember.)
Everyone presented, so I learned about the other topics. The woman who went first said she was inspired in part by something I said in class (woohoo!) Her topic was how language may be affected by the prevelance of IM and its associated abbreviations, acronyms, and “emoticons.”
The prof: “Do any of you use instant messenging regularly?”
I: “Yeah, I do.”
He: “Do you use this type of writing? And ‘smileys’?”
I: “Well, I’m a purist. I feel the same toward ‘smileys’ as I do toward exclamation points: if you have to use them, your sentence isn’t well written. Of course, not all my chatting partners feel that way. I’m often sent a bunch of smiley faces… and hearts… and, well, basically I’m chatting with 11-year-old girls.”
Collective intake of breath followed by dead fucking silence.
(Yeah, you could say that joke bombed hard. Everyone got a huge laugh out of it later, but wow, I was looking like a real jackass at that moment.)