Emoticons are small faces used to convey emotions or feelings in a textual situation. The word "emoticon" derives from a combination of "emotion" and "icon." Emoticons are most commonly used in electronic conversations such as emails, text messages or instant messages.

History

In the Sept. 19, 2002, edition of "The Guardian," Sam Mohun states that computer scientist Scott Fahlman from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh first suggested the use of an emoticon as a way of expressing sarcasm of irony in emails to the humorously challenged. Fahlman posted a "smiley" or :-) on a university forum, but he never patented his use of the emoticon or received any money for inventing it.

Happy

The most popular and common emoticon is the happy face, or "smiley." It is used to demonstrate a positive reaction, humor or a good mood by the person typing.

Sad

The other most commonly used emoticon is the sad face, used to express dissatisfaction, disappointment or sadness by the person typing. The sad face consists of a colon, a dash and a beginning parenthesis.

Wink

The wink consists of a semi-colon and an ending parenthesis. The dash is optional. The wink can be used to demonstrate humor, teasing, sarcasm or irony by the person typing.

Other Uses

Other popular emoticons can be used to represent anger and surprise. Anger can be shown a number of ways, but always begins with a greater than sign to represent narrowed eyebrows. Surprise can be used to express shock or surprise and uses a capital "O" to represent an open mouth.

Advances

Many forms of electronic technology have implemented an auto-emoticon system that changes typed emoticons into images. Users type the basic emoticon with their keyboard or keypad and the characters change automatically to a cartoon-like picture.

Source:

"Emoticons" by Sam Mohun, The Guardian Online

Princeton University WordNet