This week marks the 30-year anniversary of emoticons. Some purists hate them, but I think they've been a wonderful addition to our written language. Honestly, even a writer doesn't always want to exert the effort to write and re-write a phrase so that it is clearly nuanced.
When you take your writing seriously, you shouldn't be shy about playing with the language it to see where it takes you.
The single most annoying part for me of the American version of English is the stupid convention of placing punctuation inside quote marks...ALWAYS (except for the exceptions). This has driven me mad since elementary school. It makes no freakin' sense.
