Types of Emoticons
Emoticons are symbols or icons used to convey emotions between people who are chatting online. Just as you would laugh, smile, frown or yell in real life, emoticons allow you to express all of these emotions and more when you are chatting online with your friends in a chat room or a private message.
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Types
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Emoticons come in two standard types called ASCII emoticons or icon emoticons. Use ASCII emoticons when icons are not available; these consist of using keyboard symbols to make the face you want to project. For example, a colon followed by a right hand parenthesis :) is a smiley face. A colon followed by a left hand parenthesis :( is a frown face. Most instant messenger chats include icon usage, which makes it easier to find the perfect face to express your feelings.
Facts
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People began using emoticons so they could inject some personality into their online conversations and emails. Later the instant messenger and email systems noticed this need for personalizing emails and conversations and invented the smiley faces, which is another name for emoticon icons. Choosing your emotions online is almost as easy as laughing or frowning offline.
Text
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Although most people use one of the two styles of emoticons, some people use a text style to describe their emotions. This usually takes the form of brackets or parenthesis around a word that describes how the person feels. For example, if someone asks how another's day is going, he may reply, "Good. Thanks for asking <smile>" or he could use (smile). This type of emoticon is especially useful when one doesn't know what icon to use, since he only has to use the word that describes his feeling and place it inside the brackets.
Benefits
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The benefits of the types of emoticons are that one can virtually describe a feeling in an online medium. Since the other person cannot hear or see you, he is more apt to misinterpret the online words especially if you are teasing or sarcastic. Using the types of emoticons to express laughter, anger, sadness or teasing clues the other person into what you are actually expressing.
Warning
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It is easy to get carried away with using all types of emoticons in your chats and emails. From the icon to rolling on the floor laughing to the rolling eyes or kisses, the chat clutters and the emoticon icons can actually detract from your meaning. Use the emoticons to express your feelings but keep the usage low key and complementary to your words.
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