Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!sco!stewarte
From: stewarte@sco.COM (Dr. Luther's Assistant)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
Subject: Re: Audio & Video Needed for Group Support?
Message-ID: <13879@scorn.sco.COM>
Date: 24 Jan 91 20:40:15 GMT
References: <14533@uswat.UUCP> <535@borg.cs.unc.edu>
Sender: news@sco.COM
Organization: Party of the Friends of Beer
Lines: 25


Even net.pundits were baffled when shackelf@tlab2.cs.unc.edu (Douglas Shackelford) wrote:

>Something that has always been interesting to me is that the
>smiley ( :) ) is in some sense a humor equalizer.  That is,
>everyone does the smiley in about the same way.  It is hard to
>misunderstand a smiley, whereas, more complicated facial and
>speech behaviors can be easily misinterpreted.

Yes, but this is precisely because the smiley contains less information --
and as a result of that, people have to shoehorn a variety of meanings
into that one symbol.  The distinctions between good-natured leg-pulling,
sarcasm, and poking fun at someone can't be made at all with the smiley,
wheras with those more complicated behaviors there is some hope that 
they will be correctly interpreted.  

In short, I think they're less likely to be misinterpreted because they
don't lend themselves to much interpretation at all.

-- Stewart
-- 
"The old stereotypes must be lost
 that peace and knowledge and love are soft."
			-- Blastmaster KRS-ONE
/*  uunet!sco!stewarte  -or-  stewarte@sco.COM  -or-  Stewart Evans  */