Re: Ironic Use of Attitudinals

[Rick Nylander <rnylander@DTSI.COM>]

>>>>Actually, smileys can also be used ironically.
>>>
>>>I haven't seen it, and I take their usage literally as well.
>>
>>Rick Nylander did in an earlier post:
>>
>># Unless you want to say Mr. Webster is wrong. %^O
>>
>>Looks like a smiley of shock and alarm...
>
>Is that ironic?  I would be shocked and alarmed if the dictionaryt
>proved to be grossly incorrect in the matter of a definition of a word.
>It turned out that the definition in question was perhaps incomplete.
>But I saw nothing surprising or ironical in his choice of smiley.  (Of
>course, he might have intended something other than shock and alarm by
>that smiley,(

I hate to disappoint or disillusion anyone, but allow me to clarify _my_
use of that particular smiley before we have to start a whole new thread
just to discuss it.

For one thing, I haven't hung out on the net much until just within the
last few months, when my company got "wired."  Indeed, this little group
right here is the first group of its type I've involved myself in or, at
least, had the courage to post anything to.  So I'm sorry if my use of a
smiley in an ironic manner is a faux pas.

In any case, I just can't see drawing little faces in your text using
characters as being anything but humorous.  So I invariably use them
with - yes - a sense of irony.  Why?  Just because I think they're funny
every time I see them.  So my smiley was intended as mock-horror.

In addition, I thought the reference to "Mr. Webster" would also make it
clear that I was joking.

I apologize for the distraction.

Now, leave my smiley out of this. :-)

Rik.