In a world where information is conveyed by mashing a few buttons on a keyboard, cell phone or tablet, it seems almost wasteful to take the time to actually type out how you’re feeling that day. Through this sense of having to conserve nano-minutes of time and possibly inject a bit of humor came emoticons. Whether you’re feeling nauseated, excited, thirsty, fearful, suspicious or, of course, happy or sad, an emoticon exists to represent you on your digital media.
Definition
An emoticon is a typographical representation of a facial expression. Whether through an instant messenger chat window, text message, email or word processing document, emoticons put a face on what textual characters couldn’t. The word emoticon is a mash-up of the words “emotion” and “icon.”
Types
Almost every kind of facial expression has been or may be rendered as an emoticon. The most familiar is the smiley face, most commonly typed as the colon for eyes, a dash for a nose and a closed parenthesis for a smiley mouth, resulting in the following: Continue Reading Using Emoticons: All you need to know!
