A Beginner's Guide to Effective Email:
Gestures

Kaitlin Duck Sherwood ducky@webfoot.com
While you are unable to accompany your words with hand or facial gestures, there are several ASCII stand-ins for gestures.

Smileys

A facial gestures can be represented with "smiley": an ASCII drawing of a facial expression. The most common three are 
	:-)
	;-)
and 
	:-(
(To understand these symbols, turn your head counter-clockwise and look at them sideways.)

While people will have slightly different interpretations of the exact difference between the upper two, my personal opinion is that the upper one means more "I'm happy" and the lower one means more "I'm kidding".

Typical examples: 

	Hey, guess what -  I got the left-handed 
	thromblemeister spec done ahead of time!  :-)  
	I'm on my way to fame and fortune now!  ;-)
The second smiley, the ;-), indicates that you don't really believe that your boss will give you that big raise. It is similar to but not as fierce a rebutal as a "NOT!" appended to the end of a sentence: 
	Hey, guess what -  I got the left-handed 
	thromblemeister spec done ahead of time!  :-)  
	I'm on my way to fame and fortune now - NOT!
There are a wide range of ASCII gestures available to you, from ill %^P to angry >:-< to astonished :-o, limited only by your imagination. There is a whole Smiley dictionary out there if you are feeling uncreative. (Note: I personally think that some of the Smiley Dictionary definitions of the basic smileys aren't a totally accurate reflection of the way I see smileys used, but your milage may vary.)

Pause Equivalents

Imagine that you ask someone if you can turn the gain up to ten and a half. He says, "Well", then pauses for a long time, scratches his head, looks down at the floor, winces, grits his teeth, and says again, "Well", then pauses and says, "It might not explode". You'd get a sense of just how bad an idea it would be, while the text: 
	Well, it might not explode.
gives less information. I like to use lots of whitespace and typed-out vocalizations of "I'm thinking" sounds, as follows: 
	Weeeellllll....    errr   hem.    

	Wellll, it *might* not explode.
You can also use whitespace to make it more clear which words belong to which clause. For example, the following is very difficult to parse 
	Did you want to use a left-handed thromblemeister or a 
	right-handed one with a half-twist or a Jackadoody brocket?
You could instead say: 
	Did you want to use 
		a left-handed thromblemeister
	or
		a right-handed one with 
			a half-twist
		or
			a Jackadoody brocket?
or 
	Did you want to use 
		a left-handed thromblemeister
	or
		a right-handed one with a half-twist
	or
		a right-handed one with a Jackadoody brocket?
as appropriate. My mom goes one step further, and suggests hauling out Mrs. Grundy's notes on outlines: 
	Did you want to use:
        	1. a left-handed thromblemeister
  	or    
		2. a right-handed one with a
                	a. half-twist
                	b. Jackadoody brocket

Creative Punctuation

I tend to use a lot of punctuation in what I call "comic book style". Instead of saying: 
	I am very confused and a little upset.  Why did 
	you give my report to Jack instead of Jill?
I'd say: 
	???!??!  Why did you give my report to Jack 
	instead of Jill?!?
The question mark is kind of shorthand for a furrowed brow or a "huh?". The exclamation mark is shorthand for amazement and possibly a scowl. The two together seem to mean astonishment.

There is a long and proud tradition of using punctuation as a placeholder for swearing, e.g. That #%&#$(*! You will also sometimes see an asterisk in place of important letters, usually the vowel, e.g. That son of a b*tch! or That son of a b****! or very rarely That s*n of a b*tch!. (In actual practice, this form of self-censorship is rare; it is more common for people to either use the whole word or omit it completely.)

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Ducky

Last modified 10 Dec 1994

This document is in the public domain. You may copy it, modify it, shred it, mail it to your neighbor, put it on a telephone pole, tack it up on a bathroom wall, or anything else that you feel like doing with it. Some credit would be nice but is not necessary.