The 'smiley' phenomenon is interesting but, in my view, totally unnecessary. Yes, I am guilty of [over-]using them myself, but why?

Conventional Internet wisdom tells us that we need smileys because we cannot adequately express tone of voice and/or body language in a text medium.

Oh yes? Tell that to the generations of great English letter writers, whose communications we now reverently collect and, often, hold up as of paragons of the written art.

The fact is, if you can't adequately express your thoughts in words without using pictures as a crutch, then you need to try harder.

I challenge all on 3 to go a complete week without using a smiley. Yes, it means you will have to choose your words with more care to make your humour/sarcasm/joy apparent to the reader. Yes, it means *thinking* about your prose. But surely that's a good thing?

I will commit here and now to not using a smiley in any on-line communication for the next seven days. Right after this one: 

Who will join me?

I must say that I don't use smileys that much, and have wondered if I am being off-putting.

There are times when I have been pleased to see them used in answers to me.  But choice of smileys needs care and sensitivity just as much as the choice of words.

Even I have not read Lord Chesterfield or Horace Walpole, so I cannot judge whether they would be improved by smileys, or in the case of Walpole, winks.

Welcome to the world wide web,  in which billions of people are communicating with each other - and very many not in their native language.  

In a medium in which there's all the difference between "bollocks" and "the dog's bollocks", smileys help to underline nuance and intention.  This is especially valuable when there's irony, spoof or satire involved - not all societies use these forms so readily as others, and the message might be taken on face value.

Smileys are simply extended punctuation, in a language which is never standing still, and does not inhabit the same linguistic world as "the generations of great English (so no Scots or Irish or Americans?) letter writers".  We have moved on a bit from what Leigh Hunt might have penned to his fellow countryman just 25 miles away, and that involves making some allowances for the comprehension of those with whom we correspond.

Punctuation is used differently in many languages.  The exclamation mark wasn't used commonly in English until the sixteenth century (although German had it from the fourteenth) and implies strongly expressed meaning.  In other words, it's a smiley. (In Russian it used to indicate the Vocative, and letters always begin with it, viz "Dear Dmitry!").  Chinese and Japanese don't have full stops or spaces between characters.  Instead there is a half-close (a small circle) to indicate the end of a topic, which might have comprised many sentences or paragraphs.  Even the question-mark came into use quite late - it's not found at all before the C7th (where are those "great letter writers of the Roman Empire" like Tacitus, Livy, or Ovid... who never used it at all?), and it's only found in England from the 9th (although in latin only - much later in the vernacular).   Punctuation highlights meaning and intent.  Surely meaning is our foremost priority when writing?

I should have included the word "language" after "English". Oh, I really feel the need for an embarrassed smiley now!

Or, in the case of certain antipodean Members, the use of bold to convey a sense variously of rightness, importance and rectitude.

It's an idea - I tend not to use them very often (although more here than TOP) so I will not use any this week.  They are useful for explaining a slightly light hearted, tongue-in-cheek comment though, aren't they?

I would never underscore words. for the reason Reiner gives -- it has become the convention for hyperlinks.

In handwritten or typed pages, I would understand underscoring to be a directive to the typesetter, anyway: "make these words italic". Although it seems that some editors now accept typescripts with italic formatting already in place. Call me old fashioned, but that just seems wrong to me.

Just a few hours from now and we'll get the Grew opinion. I am smiling at this moment.