Internet Basics 101

Question: What is a smilie? (or emotikons?)

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 ya later
lol	laughing out loud
rofl	rolling on the floor laughing
<g>	grin

Question: You say this stuff adds personality to text messages?

Answer:

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