How to Combine Characters for Emoticons
Incorporating emoticons into your online chats can create a rich, entertaining and expressive experience for you and your friends. They can lend a vibe to your messages that can help express how your words are intended, effectively changing the text from serious to casual, teasing or goofy. Learning how to use emoticons can initially be disorienting, but over time you may find that they come to you without much thought at all. They can also be incorporated into emails and text messaging.
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Instructions
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Decide which application you intend to use your emoticons in, because this will change the pre-established set of emoticons that are available. For example, if you'll be using AOL Instant Messenger or Gmail Chat, certain character combinations will transform into an animated emoticon when entered. However, emoticons can also be effective in emails and text messages without this function.
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Experiment with some preset emoticon faces if you are using AIM or Gchat. Pull up a list of these emoticons and their shortcut keys on the Internet. Go into your chosen application and practice entering some of the combinations in a chat window. Place your cursor in the chat window and type the combinations, which usually consist of two or three characters. For example, the Gchat character combination for a grimace is x-( and the combination for a wink is ;) . AIM's combination for embarrassment is :-[ .
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Turn your head 90 degrees to the left so that you can view how these emoticons are intended to be viewed. This will give you a better understanding of how they are constructed. Note that the first character usually represents the eyes, the second character often represents the nose (although this is often omitted) and the last character represents the mouth. For example, the "P" in :P represents a tongue that is stuck out, which could mean the person is feeling playful or teasing. The "B" in B-) represents sunglasses, which may signify that someone is feeling pretty "cool" or smug about something.
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Create your own emoticon language by making your own combinations. You can choose to add a nose into all of your signature emoticons by placing an "o," "^" or "-" into the combination. These smiley faces could look like the following depending on your choice of nose: :o) , :^) or :-) . Experiment with different possibilities until you have created your own signature emoticon style. You can even add eyebrows, beards and mustaches depending on your level of creativity.
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Use your emoticons in all text-based messages where there is a casual element. Incorporating emoticons into phone text messaging may require some adaptation, because the keyboard on most phones is different from those on computers. Emoticons may even be considered acceptable in many work-based email threads to convey a casual or playful tone. Not all workplaces consider emoticon use acceptable, however, so check with a coworker or review old email messages to determine whether emoticons are appropriate for corporate emails.
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References
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