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Question: What is a Smilie? (or Emotikons?) |
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Answer: : ) A Smilie is a text representation of a Smilie face (rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise). |
Since text messages (e-mail and chat sessions) don't allow for voice inflections it is hard to tell when people are joking around or being sarcastic. Smilies were created out of necessity to input that little bit of personality into an otherwise drab text message.
Consider the following example - see how they differ in interpretation?
That was a stupid thing to do.
or
That was a stupid thing to do ;-)
There are probably hundreds of variations - I'm not going to try to list all or even most of them - but below is a short list of some of the most basic Smilies.
| Smilie | stands for |
|---|---|
| :-) | standard Smilie |
| :-( | frowning |
| ;-) | winking |
| (-: | user is left handed |
| :-o | surprised |
| |-I | user is asleep |
| :-D | laughing |
Another thing that started was the acronyms that came from having to type all that stuff on the keyboard. Many of these have been around long before cyberspace - but the list is growing fast.
| abbreviation | stands for |
|---|---|
| FYI | for your information |
| ASAP | as soon as possible |
| BTW | by the way |
| IMHO | in my humble opinion |
| FWIW | for what it's worth |
| TTYL | talk to you later |
| LOL | laughing out loud |
| ROFL | rolling on the floor laughing |
| <g> | grin |
Question: You say this stuff adds personality to text messages?
- Answer: IMHO - - - - yep ;)
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