Originally Posted by GDwarf

Emoticons are quite useful, actually.


The thing is, so much of (the English, at least) language is expressed through tone of voice that using text makes things very ambiguous indeed.

If you're a master wordsmith you can express yourself without them, but it's difficult to do so without being very wordy.

I am not a master wordsmith, so I find them very useful for conveying tone of voice.