the comman's rival

it's well known that last week i sang the praises of the comma all about town. oh sure, it was on my myspace blog, this blog, hell, it even made it into wooderson's post comments. yup, i was whorin' around with the comma, thinking it was the bpmoc (big punctuation mark on campus). turns out i may have spoken to soon.

you see, a friend of mine said she thought that, while the comma was pretty powerful, that the most powerful punctuation mark is actually:

;-) or it's cousin :-) or uncle :-[)

now, leaving arguments about whether this is actually a punctuation mark or not aside, she has a point. here are a few examples of the emoticon's power. imagine i sent best wife ever the following:

you're a vegan asshole!!!
you're a vegan asshole!!! ;-)

she'd have the locks changed before i could correctly pronounce seitan if i sent the first one. the second? well, it'd be something we'd laugh about as we mocked other people who "just don't get us."

the emoticon changes everything!!! here's another example. imagine that your coworker received the following from your regional vice president:

great job covering for me on the reports, dwight. you really made me look like a genius!
great job covering for me on the reports, dwight. you really made me look like a genius! ;-) LOL!! (not technically an emoticon, but we'll cover abbreviation thingys next week, so it's okay)

he'd get the first one and think, "woohoo! they finally noticed that i ALWAYS sort my sales by descending revenue, then by alphabet and THEN by application. it's about time!!" and then start singing the jeffersons' theme song. if he got the second, he'd probably start thinking about which office supplies he can sneak out with before getting shit-canned.

so, mr. comma, we had a good run, but i'm thinking that maybe the emoticon is my guy. i know, i know. but look at that smile! and the wink? it makes me giddy just thinking about it. oh, don't worry, you'll be fine. i'm sure there's lots of writers who would absolutely love a punctuation mark like you. ;-)