Are Emoticons Acceptable in Professional Communication?

For my first blog on this site I reach in to the world of professional written communication.

In the 21st century, we cannot deny that our communication is primarily written. Texting, social media, and email dominate our lives. Television, radio, and newspapers all have hashtags (#), which are used to group our ideas together on the Internet, My wife has used the term "Hashtag Whore" when she comes across those posts full of innumerable or practically indecipherable hashtags. In these instances, it is quite unlikely that anyone else will use the same hashtag. The hashtag has evolved in to a type of emoticon to express context and humor. I have heard hashtags in speech. And some day we may see email subject lines such as, #staffmeeting, or #watercooler. Truly a devolving manifestation of our language...#devolutionoflanguage :-p

My son is a great example. With his first-born child and my first granddaughter I often see him type #wrappedaroundherfinger on his posts. I searched "#wrappedaroundherfinger" on Facebook and–voilà!–his posts pop up...but wait, there are other posts here...Awww, so cute those babies are of people I do not know. My search today only resulted in 12, but I am sure we could find more. Is there an App or Website that lets you track and find hashtags? Well that is for future blog. Subscribe and you will be notified of my next great exposé. ;-)

[Note: Happy Birthday to my favorite daughter-in-law, beautiful wife of my oldest son and awesome mother of my only grandchild. My son is #wrappedaroundherfinger]

Hashtags were not designed for emotion albeit we see that evolution, so let's return to the true question of the day: Emoticons. Should we use them in professional communication? Emoticons, in my opinion, can be used and indeed must be used in situations where the text could be misinterpreted. Agreed, even with an emoticon, the wrong intent is still possible; however, using an emoticon could could reduce the likelihood of misinterpretation or provide an "out' should the recipient take offense. Because really...who can argue with a winky?

The omniscient and erudite world of the media has asked this question, too:

Emoticons Move to the Business World - Cultural Studies ... - #NYTimes
Emoticons At Work: Unprofessional Or Necessary Evil? - #HuffingtonPost

Those two articles were written in 2011. Practically another era in computer time. :-p

There are so many types of emoticons that there is a real danger of adding the wrong one or, worse, too many (shudder), thus confusing rather than improving your communication. :-) ;-) :-p I think if we stick to the three most common emoticons we can be safe in our professional communication.

Lest you take offense at the detailed descriptions to follow, my mom reads this blog and will benefit.

1. The smiley ... consists of a colon and right parenthesis, sometimes with a hyphen in between.
   :)   or    :-)
   Use the smiley to indicate you are pleased with what you wrote, as in pleased with the content or result communicated, not that what you just wrote was Shakespearean. :-)
2. The wink ... consists of the semicolon and right parenthesis, sometimes with a hyphen in between.
   ;)   or    ;-)
   Use the wink to indicate you are being a little sarcastic or playful. This is often a good way to tone down the intent of words that could otherwise be construed too harshly.
3. The sad face ... consists of the colon and left parentheses, sometimes with a hyphen in between.
   :(   or    :-(
   This obviously indicates your displeasure of the content or news being communicated.

...and the bonus emoticon:
The tongue sicking out. ... consisting of the colon and the letter 'p'.
:p  or  :-p  or add a wink and you get   ;-p capital P is used but I prefer the lowercase. :p :P

The variations on these is exponential and my advice is to use caution. Know your audience. You may not want to put these in a brief to a judge, but the email sending the brief could have one. Less is more and if you think it may come across unprofessional...Well... maybe you use it anyway. This is the 21st century and our language is evolving or devolving, depending on your perspective, so if it is part of your personality, you should be you.

...And that is my thought on the matter.

PS  "Real-Deal Scientific Studies for Using Positive Emoticons - 2015"