Your Life, My Thoughts

Sadface

Q. I’ve been messaging with a guy I recently met, and lately I’ve been wondering if it’s okay to use smiley faces in flirtatious emails.  Sometimes I use it to milk the “I’m a cute girl” factor, but is it still okay to do that?  

A. If you’re familiar with my thoughts on w00t, you can probably already predict that my answer is an emphatic “No.*” Leave the smiley faces to the reigning teen prom queens of the world. English has (hyperbolically speaking) the most words of any language. Certainly there are ways to get your coquettish point across without succumbing to emoticons and the like.

*The only exception I will allow is if the two of you get into a discussion of the various stages in Prince’s career. In such cases, the  or O(+> may be used to demarcate his pre and post “Artist Formerly Known As” era. 

RE: w00t!

See Beth and Not Beth, even tweeting physicists with the power to make subatomic particles collide know better than to use “w00t” online or aloud.

If anyone had a reason to “w00t” (or “woot”) over something, these people do, and if they can forgo it, so can you.

OMG, w00t is totes ok online! LOL smiley face!
 
j/k! 

Sorry Charlie, but typing w00t is just a slippery slope toward typing in shorthand w/o vwls. b4 u kno it, ur only using :)  or  :( wit d occasional :-P. If you must express enthusiasm online, try going old school. Consistent use of a rowdy “huzzah!” or “hip-hip!” may go a long way in stemming the degradation of the English language that such horrible internet speech patterns have wrought on our society.*  

kthxbye,

yours truly

*Researchers are actually split on whether IM speech is good or bad for the language, but each time you resort to a w00t (or a “woot”), I lose just a little bit more respect for you.

Nerd Alert

Q. When is it okay to use “w00t” in conversation?
-Beth 

A. Is this kid still looking for his “future girlfriend,” because it sounds like you’d be perfect! While I’m no WIlliam Safire (RIP),  I’m pretty sure that the proper usage of “w00t” would be amongst your fellow mathletes, or after winning gold at the science olympiad.

However, if you’ve already graduated high school, didn’t enroll at MIT or Caltech, and you’re not living in your mom’s basement, it’s best that you not use it under any circumstances ever.  You’re only making yourself susceptible to wedgies from the Mean Girls who are more etymologically inclined toward the panache of abbrevs. 

Sinceres,

yours truly