6 ms·

What I really like is when you get random J's in emails from people. Took me a while to figure out this is some kind of autoreplace thing in Outlook that switc

What I really like is when you get random J's in emails from people. Took me a while to figure out this is some kind of autoreplace thing in Outlook that switches out emoticons with characters from the wingdings font, and J is a smiley face.

drzaiusapelord 12y ago
There's also a common sig about "Please think twice about printing this email" with a wingwings of a little tree. That turns into some plain character as well. Maybe G? I kept wondering why everyone was ending their emails with G. I also wonder how much energy is collectively wasted sending that extra line in every email. It must add up to something from a storage, energy use, rendering, etc perspective. I wonder if it offsets any behavior changes that may help the environment by those who actually don't print. I doubt that little message is going to stop anyone from printing.
- fwr 12y ago
  The character is P - until recently I thought it was supposed to be an initial, since the sentence begins with "Please" For reference: http://i.imgur.com/I1GET1w.png http://i.imgur.com/I1GET1w.png
  - troels 12y ago
    Whoa .. I had no idea. Do you know how it looks to outlook users?
    - fwr 12y ago
      http://thinkbeforeprinting.org/get-the-message.php http://thinkbeforeprinting.org/get-the-message.php
      - duderific 12y ago
        Heheh font tags...sweet.
- omh 12y ago
  I doubt that little message is going to stop anyone from printing On at least one occasion I've printed an email and ended up using an extra page because of the extended "Please think twice" section.
andygmb 12y ago
Tom Scott touched on this in his Computerphile video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tITwM5GDIAI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tITwM5GDIAI
nradov 12y ago
You can disable this in Outlook: Outlook Options → Mail → Editor Options → AutoCorrect Options
salgernon 12y ago
Wow, I was wondering about that just yesterday. It seems to be common among realtors and mortgage company underlings - people that I don't normally have to deal with, but that are likely to use emoticons to end every paragraph.
- smaps 12y ago
  I am a mortgage company underling and can confirm that almost everyone at my company, and the realtors we deal with, use tons of emoticons. I think it's the only way everyone manages to stay sane in this business.
  - duderific 12y ago
    I would not be able to stay sane if I had to look at tons of emoticons every day.
- Kluny 12y ago
  I do deal with realtors every day... my god, never in my life have I met such an illiterate group of so-called professionals.
  - nsxwolf 12y ago
    It's one of the few potentially decent paying professions someone without a college degree can get into without insurmountable entry barriers, so perhaps you should go a bit easier on them.
    - wtallis 12y ago
      It doesn't look to me like he's discriminating against realtors for not having gone to college; he's bashing them for actual demonstrated poor literacy, which is a lot harder to excuse than not going to college. (If you meant to instead make a more reasonable complaint about him painting with an overly-broad brush, you should have said so.)
      - 12y ago
dphnx 12y ago
For months I thought my girlfriend was signing her emails with her initial. It wasn’t until I saw her typing an email to a friend that I realised what was going on.
crb 12y ago
Another Raymond Chen (blog post author) on the that topic: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2006/05/23/604741.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2006/05/23/60474...
sharkbot 12y ago
Raymond also answered that question on his blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2006/05/23/604741.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2006/05/23/60474... WingDings mapped the 'J' character to smiley face; when the email goes to a client without that font installed, it just displays the original character in the default font. Old New Thing is an awesome blog! J
- smackfu 12y ago
  The latest Unicode updates should fix this. All those glyphs are now mapped to Unicode points instead of ASCII, so if someone has an updated Wingdings font, it won't be a 'J' anymore. (It will be a box with a question mark, probably.)
  - andybalholm 12y ago
    If the sender has an ASCII Wingdings, and the receiver has a Unicode Wingdings, the receiver gets a J (at least if the receiver is using Apple Mail).
- batiudrami 12y ago
  That makes so much sense! The people I correspond with at work now seem much less professional.
ronjouch 12y ago
Thunderbird users, there's an addon for that: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/thunderbird/addon/smiley-fixer/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/thunderbird/addon/smiley-fi...
- kbart 12y ago
  That's probably the worst possible fix. Why fix something that should not be there at all? MS broke comparability with other email clients by introducing such one-way conversion to graphics, a fix must be on their side.
lurkinggrue 12y ago
I do hate software that auto replaces :) with a graphic emoticon.

drzaiusapelord 12y ago

There's also a common sig about "Please think twice about printing this email" with a wingwings of a little tree. That turns into some plain character as well. Maybe G? I kept wondering why everyone was ending their emails with G. I also wonder how much energy is collectively wasted sending that extra line in every email. It must add up to something from a storage, energy use, rendering, etc perspective. I wonder if it offsets any behavior changes that may help the environment by those who actually don't print. I doubt that little message is going to stop anyone from printing.

fwr 12y ago
The character is P - until recently I thought it was supposed to be an initial, since the sentence begins with "Please" For reference: http://i.imgur.com/I1GET1w.png http://i.imgur.com/I1GET1w.png
- troels 12y ago
  Whoa .. I had no idea. Do you know how it looks to outlook users?
  - fwr 12y ago
    http://thinkbeforeprinting.org/get-the-message.php http://thinkbeforeprinting.org/get-the-message.php
    - duderific 12y ago
      Heheh font tags...sweet.
omh 12y ago
I doubt that little message is going to stop anyone from printing On at least one occasion I've printed an email and ended up using an extra page because of the extended "Please think twice" section.

andygmb 12y ago

Tom Scott touched on this in his Computerphile video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tITwM5GDIAI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tITwM5GDIAI

nradov 12y ago

You can disable this in Outlook: Outlook Options → Mail → Editor Options → AutoCorrect Options

salgernon 12y ago

Wow, I was wondering about that just yesterday. It seems to be common among realtors and mortgage company underlings - people that I don't normally have to deal with, but that are likely to use emoticons to end every paragraph.

smaps 12y ago
I am a mortgage company underling and can confirm that almost everyone at my company, and the realtors we deal with, use tons of emoticons. I think it's the only way everyone manages to stay sane in this business.
- duderific 12y ago
  I would not be able to stay sane if I had to look at tons of emoticons every day.
Kluny 12y ago
I do deal with realtors every day... my god, never in my life have I met such an illiterate group of so-called professionals.
- nsxwolf 12y ago
  It's one of the few potentially decent paying professions someone without a college degree can get into without insurmountable entry barriers, so perhaps you should go a bit easier on them.
  - wtallis 12y ago
    It doesn't look to me like he's discriminating against realtors for not having gone to college; he's bashing them for actual demonstrated poor literacy, which is a lot harder to excuse than not going to college. (If you meant to instead make a more reasonable complaint about him painting with an overly-broad brush, you should have said so.)
    - 12y ago

dphnx 12y ago

For months I thought my girlfriend was signing her emails with her initial. It wasn’t until I saw her typing an email to a friend that I realised what was going on.

crb 12y ago

Another Raymond Chen (blog post author) on the that topic: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2006/05/23/604741.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2006/05/23/60474...

sharkbot 12y ago

Raymond also answered that question on his blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2006/05/23/604741.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2006/05/23/60474... WingDings mapped the 'J' character to smiley face; when the email goes to a client without that font installed, it just displays the original character in the default font. Old New Thing is an awesome blog! J

smackfu 12y ago
The latest Unicode updates should fix this. All those glyphs are now mapped to Unicode points instead of ASCII, so if someone has an updated Wingdings font, it won't be a 'J' anymore. (It will be a box with a question mark, probably.)
- andybalholm 12y ago
  If the sender has an ASCII Wingdings, and the receiver has a Unicode Wingdings, the receiver gets a J (at least if the receiver is using Apple Mail).
batiudrami 12y ago
That makes so much sense! The people I correspond with at work now seem much less professional.

ronjouch 12y ago

Thunderbird users, there's an addon for that: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/thunderbird/addon/smiley-fixer/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/thunderbird/addon/smiley-fi...

kbart 12y ago
That's probably the worst possible fix. Why fix something that should not be there at all? MS broke comparability with other email clients by introducing such one-way conversion to graphics, a fix must be on their side.

lurkinggrue 12y ago

I do hate software that auto replaces :) with a graphic emoticon.