My "smart" phone has, on its touchscreen keypad used for texting, a key with the emoticon ":-)" printed on it. I would never begrudge anyone their use of abbreviations or emoticons while texting, while personally I engage in neither. I even use semi-colons in texts for chrissakes. But this emoticon key is very large and below the delete key, and my "smart" phone is a little touchy---actually, it can get pretty annoying as it oscillates between not picking up any amount of touch to triple entering even the slightest brush over a key. It's especially bad with that damn emoticon key.
Say I'm trying to text the word "the", and it doesn't pick up the "h", leaving me with "te" and I notice it (which is also a rarity). Dammit, I mutter, and try hitting the delete key twice (because I've invariably gotten to "te_"), but since the combination of the size of the emoticon key and the random touchiness of the touchscreen, I'll end up with "te :-):-)". When I notice, I can erase the first face with one stroke of the delete key, but the other face will need three strokes to make it disappear.
And that's assuming I don't hit the emoticon again.
(Sigh)
(Trivial escalation.)
I'm fondly reminded of the AE-35 Unit. When the AE-35 unit fails, three intrepid souls (plus some in cryosleep) would be out of communication.
ReplyDeleteDon't let your phone tell you the AE-35 unit is broken.
Google works, however, for those of us who are not aware of what that is...