stop using emoticons!!

I’ve been emoticon-free for several days now. It was much easier than I expected, once I got over the initial “will she know I’m joking/being sarcastic” worry. I have to fight the urge to use a smiley to soften a not-so-nice message, but I’ve forced myself not to use one each time I was tempted after committing to this goal. As a writer, my problem with emoticons stems from the fact that they let you off the hook from choosing the appropriate words and tone to convey your message. In short, they’re a cop out. Given all the millions of words out there and the infinite ways to combine them into sentences, there’s really no excuse for not saying exactly what you mean. Writing something approximate and then inserting a contrived combination of punctuation and letters to get your point across smacks of both laziness and ignorance. I’d like to completely eradicate them from my written communications.