My friend recently gave me a wonderful gift: A 142 page book containing all our email correspondence from 2002 - 2003. I couldn't put the book down; not only was it fascinating on a personal level, but it also read like a document from a previous era—one that didn't involve texting or Facebook or any of the other ways she and I pass messages to each other now.
The emails were clever, well-paced, thoughtfully constructed and, most importantly, contained not a single emoticon, which made me realize how emoticon-dependent I've become. Peppered throughout my emails, they are now a literary crutch. Could this joke be misinterpreted? I know! insert ;) So for the past few days, every time I have the urge to type an emoticon, I've been forcing myself to either rework the sentence, or just let it go, as clearly there was a time when I managed to get my thoughts (and jokes) across successfully without them.
Then I read about the SarcMark, a punctuation mark that denotes sarcasm and retails for $1.99. Judging from the SarcMark website, the entire enterprise is a tongue-in-cheek, money-making novelty item, but it does highlight a cultural soft spot. When our digital communication requires a significant downsizing of the English language, a single communicative mark has a lot of value. Just think how much room that would free up in a Tweet!
Ultimately I turned up my nose at the SarcMark, for several reasons:
1. The cost
2. The poor design quality of the mark itself
3. It's only available for Windows OS
4. It encourages communicative laziness
5. Doesn't an emoticon already exist for this same purpose?
And so, as I sat at my desk, awash in smug superiority, the blue cover of the email correspondence book caught my eye, reminding me of my current battle against my old pals :) and ;).
Touché SarkMark, touché.