Amro I would not get the winks and smily faces in outlook express so it is best to use words instead. Eleanor ----- Original Message ----- From: Amro Bilal To: Access-UK Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2008 9:24 PM Subject: [access-uk] An observation and a curiosity Hi all, This might be OT, not really sure but here goes. I noticed on this list that people don't use smileys and winks such as :) ;) etc. People rather write smile, wink and what have you. I've never come across this practise on any other emailing list or internet forum. It struck me that even literate computer users on this list do that. So I wander, is there a reason for this practise? Do Braille users find wink signs confusing for instance? Excuse my ignorance, but I rely on my screen reader's speech output and I've never had any problems with reading winks. I started doing what everyone else does on this list and the Jaws list but never asked why! If there's a good reason behind this I'd be glad to learn it. If there isn't, then IMHO this is a bad habit. What applies to other internet forums I believe should apply here too unless there's a justification for doing otherwise. Am I being pedantic? Would love to here other people opinions! Cheers, Amro -- I am using the free version of SPAMfighter. We are a community of 5.6 million users fighting spam. SPAMfighter has removed 638 of my spam emails to date. Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len The Professional version does not have this message