How to Combine Characters in Smileys

You can type characters on the keyboard to make emoticons.

When you’re communicating with someone via text message, email or a forum posting, you might prefer to accentuate your words with a smiley. A smiley, also known as an emoticon, is an image that you create by combining different characters with the computer’s keyboard. You can use a smiley to convey feelings such as happiness or attitudes such as sarcasm, enabling you to add an emotional layer to the words you are typing. Smileys are often designed so your reader views them sideways, as in the emoticon for a smiling face with glasses: “B- ).”

Instructions

1. Launch an application for creating an email, text message or Internet forum posting.

2. Create a new message or posting.

3. Type your message. Type the first character of a smiley at the point where you want to augment your message with an image. For example, type a colon to serve as the eyes in a smiley face.

4. Press the space bar, and then type the second character of the smiley. For example, type a close parenthesis to create the mouth of a smiley.

5. Type different combinations of characters to create a variety of smileys. For example, type a semicolon instead of a colon to convey a winking smiley, as in “; ),” or use a capital “D” to make a smiley with a wide open happy mouth, as in “: D.”

6. Add more characters to give a smiley some extra detail. For example, add a nose to your smiley by combining a colon, a dash and the letter “D,” as in “: - D.”

References

• Freeshell: Canonical Smiley and 1-Line Symbol List; James Marshall
• CSGNetwork.com: Text Message Shorthand