Just curious, but these little guys drive me insane. Especially when you see them multiple times in a post. And to think, my parents spent good money on stickers for me when I was a kid.

No offense regarding the emoticons....just some light-hearted humor on a Friday afternoon. This board is an AMAZING source of information!

WHAT!? Emoticons here!?
You must be because I never see them and never use them.

It's not the emoticons that drive me crazy. It's the poor spelling and grammar on some of these threads that drives me nuts! For example, look at the title to this thread! (Sorry mjz!)

I still haven't figured out where you get them..especially like the ones in kal's reply.

I like the emoticons. There was a show a few years ago hosted by John Cleese (was it "Faces" on PBS maybe?) It discussed how important visual clues were in conversation.

The same words said with a smile vs. said with a frown can have an entirely different meaning. The emoticons help lighten that up. I don't need them with my friends because they've known me for years and know my sense of humor. Here on this board, very few people actually know anyone else. It's easy to take offense and not see humor when it was intended. Again emoticons help.

As for the spelling and grammer (sic) couldn't resist. It never bothers me. I'm on the European board mostly and for many English is not their native tongue. The other thing I've learned through the years is I can proofread and proofread again and again on a computer screen. Then I print the words on paper, read it, and find typos. It's very frustrating because I like to write properly, but it's just not that easy.

For lcuy:

www.fodors.com/forums/smileys/

indytravel: Point well taken on the spelling for the non-native English speakers of the world. I guess it's just a pet peeve of mine from seeing such garbage in the everyday American workplace that I sometimes forget to cut others a little slack. Heaven knows if I had to do this in French, German, or Italian...the things they would say about me!

I'm with you on that bmillersc. Somedays I read memos at work and cringe. It's like reading grade school work.

I love the emoticons but am with those who think our grammar and spelling in the United States is going to the dogs. As a self-confessed grammar/spelling freak (blaming the journalism degree but it started long before that...), it drives me INSANE to see our language slaughtered every day--billboards, newspapers, magazines--pretty much everywhere. It's vs. its, their vs. there, you're vs. your--learn it, live it, love it--please!!!!!!!!!! Sorry for the rant but I see what my kids are learning in Language Arts (they don't call it English anymore--therein lies the problem, methinks) and it sure isn't proper usage of the Eng. language. Okay, deep breath--I'm really not the language police--like Indytravel, I'm forever making spelling mistakes on the computer...(and yes, one of my journalism professors told us that using "..." is sloppy and lazy but those three little dot are so handy!

Cough cough...that would be 'dots,' not 'dot'...

Slinking away in shame...

What's terrible with spelling and the computer is the spellcheck doesn't know. Meet/meat, there/their/they're, hear/here bored/board and all the like are spelled correctly but still misused.

It's worse for me since I post on the European boards and like to go to France. I have French active on my spellcheck. Now bleu/blue, oui/we, nous/knew/new and many others are all spelled correctly. Is technology really helping here?!

Thank you, indytravel, tess, and bmillersc, for venting my peeves as well. I just shut up most of the time because it seems most people dislike "the spelling and grammar police". However, when it's a proper name, like Stonehedge instead of Stonehenge, I can't control myself. The sorts of mistakes we are talking about are not the ones made by non-English speakers.

I agree Marilyn. Having place names spelled correctly is a must. How can you discover someplace on the internet if you can't spell it correctly?

I remember my younger brother whining in grade school. "If I don't know how to spell it, how can I look it up in the dictionary."

> :-CC . Just had to see if I could get these to work.
Beautiful weather this morning isn't it indy..

Yes it is. The sun is starting to peek through the mist on the lake. It should be a beautiful day in southern Indiana. As soon as I finish waking up I'll be out in it.

I'm just about 50 miles up the road from Indy, so that's how I knew it was nice. Have a nice day out and about...

Thanks xaimimgr I will. I hope you do too. I'm about 50 miles south of Indy in beautiful Brown County. We're practically neighbors.

Sorry to belabor this, but if I promise (pretty please with sugar on top) not to overuse them, can someone tell me exactly how to do this? I downloaded them per Indytravels post, but when I type the symbol, i.e.
nothing happens.

Hey! Wow! I guess I just answered my own question.

Have friends in Brown Co and make a trip twice a year for a weekend with them and other classmates. This Oct I think it's the weekend of the 11/12th.
I'll say hello in the crowd on the street. gt;)

Actually, indytravel, google will guess at what you are looking for even if you spell it incorrectly. It will say "Did you mean "Stonehenge?" or something like that. So that's not much incentive to get it right. I would think not sounding like an idiot would be reason enough.