Smileys Continued

I make a bit of a distinction between smileys and the other stuff that 'netspeak' has thrown up. Most of the others may be synonyms or acronyms - u -> you, lol -> laugh out loud (or, as my mother stubbornly insists in her emails, 'lots of love') etc... On the other hand, as 'GreenOnion' remarked, smileys are a reversion to pictographs. This is a fair point, but smileys aren't used to replace words. They don't convey the body of the message. They serve an entirely different purpose - they supplement the words with emotional information. They succintly depict the mood behind the sentence. This can be quite useful, especially in cases where a sentence can have many emotions behind it. For instance-

Without smileys:

A: Would you go out on a date with me !?!
B: Sorry, no. I have a boyfriend.
A: Oh really !?! I didn't know that. Sorry.
B: No problem.
A: Thanks.

With smileys:

A: Would you go out on a date with me !?!
B: Sorry, no. I have a boyfriend :p.
A: Oh really :o :o !?! I didn't know that. Sorry.
B: No problem. :).
A: Thanks :D.

The first conversation would probably leave both parties feeling rather awkward. The second smoothly indicates the fact that B hasn't taken it seriously and isn't uncomfortable. Ditto A.