Emoticon

Emoticon is a synthetic word based on "emotion?" and "icon." An emoticon is a sequence of ASCII characters used to represent a human face and express an emotion. Emoticons that express happy or positive emotions are typically classified as smileys. Emoticons are commonly used in email messages or in chat?. To more easily recognise them, put your head on either your left or right shoulder, depending on whether the "top" of the emoticon is on the left or the right.

Some basic examples:

  :-) or (-: or :)      is a smile (a smiley)
  :-( or )-: or :(      is a frown
  :-P                   has a lolling tongue (or a tongue sticking out)
  ;-) or (-; or ;)      is winking
  B-) or 8-)            has (sun)glasses
  :-o                   expresses surprise
  :-7                   tongue in cheek (rare)

There are a lot of possibilities, because people are very good at creating and interpreting pictures as faces. See ASCII art.

As more of a joke than anything--but also as a political statement--"frownies" (the symbol :-( ) were trademarked by [Despair, Inc.] in [U.S. Patent Registration Number: 2347676]. The patent has never been enforced.

Some examples of emoticons:

  =8-0            fright

  =8-@=(&)        man who has just discovered he has a tapeworm
                  (the latter is credited to humorist Dave Barry)

  d:^)            baseball player

  +-<:-)          The pope 
  *<|:o)>         Santa Claus 
  7:^]            Ronald Reagan

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/Talk?

External links:

• http://www.angelfire.com/hi/hahakiam/emoticon.html