Wink, wink

According to the International Herald Tribune:

“Emoticons, the smiling, winking and frowning faces that inhabit the computer world, have not only hung around long past their youth faddishness of the 1990s, but they have grown up. Twenty-five years after they were invented as a form of shorthand for computer-geeks, emoticons - an open-source form of pop art that has evolved into a quasi-accepted form of punctuation - are now ubiquitous.

“Applied appropriately, users say, emoticons can no longer be dismissed as juvenile because they offer a degree of insurance for a variety of adult social interactions, and help avoid serious miscommunications.”

I can see all the good reasons in a rushed and pressured world to use a shorthand like emoticons. But as someone who loves language - with all its variety, nuances and potential for precise and beautiful communication - I find it rather sad that we are losing our ability to use complex language and ditching the beauty of words for a few punctuation marks.

Back in the days when society was much less technologically sophisticated, the elite had stresses of their own - like assassination plots and the threat of beheadings for treason etc - yet, they managed to use language in a way that has an undoubted clarity of meaning and nuance. Here is a letter written by Queen Elizabeth I to Mary Queen of Scots on the eve of the latter’s trial for treason - which I’ve punctuated with emoticons just to make sure that Mary gets the message.

October I586.

You have in various ways and manners attempted to take my life and to bring my kingdom to destruction by bloodshed. I have never proceeded so harshly against you, but have, on the contrary, protected and maintained you like myself. These treasons will be proved to you and all made manifest. Yet it is my will, that you answer the nobles and peers of the kingdom as if I were myself present. I therefore require, charge, and command that you make answer for I have been well informed of your arrogance.
Act plainly without reserve, and you will sooner be able to obtain favour of me.

ELIZABETH.

Ah, yes, that’s so much clearer, isn’t it?