make-believe.org

In love with the asterisk

It uses the word ‘inditing’ (page 11)! I’ve been looking for that. :)

[If I had an index key, I’d have used it here] What’s your stance on the new internet punctuation?

Joseph

The new internet punctuation? If you mean the use of certain units where other units would be more appropriate but are less easily input with a US 102, such as a single or double en dash for an em dash, I worry about it and despair of it. If you mean the frequent, deliberate and inexcusable abuse of punctuation, such as long sequences of !!!! or ????, that just makes me cringe. There’s nothing that two marks can convey that a single well-placed mark will not convey, except that the latter makes you look less silly. Other forms of abuse include the use of “=” for “is”, etc—but these days I don’t have to lurk in the environments where these forms typically proliferate.

If you mean emoticons like :-), I’m fine with them in the appropriate context. Which is pretty much just chatting and like activities, where you are essentially simulating oral conversation. Conversation naturally relies on expressions and gestures beyond words. Punctuation and proper use of words can perform the same functions, but this requires extra thought and time. I use emoticons in IRC, email, and messageboards/comments, but only where I think my meaning would otherwise be ambiguous, because they have the effect of undermining the force of your words.

I hate without reservation those emoticons where the software has replaced the characters with images—like the ubiquitous and all-too-frequently animated yellow spheres. They invariably upset the line-heights of the paragraphs they inhabit, rendering the text a chore to read.

I also have a problem with the form of emoticons in the context of traditional punctuation. We tend to like to make humorous asides within sentences when we speak, and when typed these are usually enclosed in parentheses. To my knowledge, no-one has properly set down whether a smiley face emoticon within such a parenthetical remark closes it or not. ie, (do you write this? :), or (do you write this? :)). There are other similar problems. It’s important, really.

Incidentally, just to be super-nerdy, here’s a link to the BB post where the smiley face emoticon was first proposed, 22 years ago.

Hans

You’ve finally flipped!

Joseph

Yep, the redesign shifted the logo over to the other side. Few other changes around here, including mandatory comment previewing, for which part of the function of this comment is to test…

Joseph

More testing. You’ll survive. If this works, it means I’ve successfully implemented:

1. Live views of comments. (Hopefully fewer duplicates…)
2. A count of the comments for each post.
3. Clicking on a “recent comment” should take you directly to it.

Chances of all three working like they do in my sandbox area are slim, but we’ll see what happens.