A smiley is often used in
text communications to convey
an emotion with a message. Smilies are used in
text messages in the same way voice changes and facial expressions are used
in face-to-face or telephone conversation. For example, if you were joking with
someone and send a text message of "Idiot!" the person receiving your message
may think you are making a rude comment to them. If you send the same message
with a "happy smiley"
: ) following, the person would then understand you
were "smiling" - or joking when you said that, and not misinterpret your intent.
To create a smiley you use your standard keyboard characters and punctuation
marks. When viewing text smilies they are all sideways. Smilies are often used
in online
chat rooms, game rooms,
instant messaging, and in
e-mail.
A smiley can also be called an emoticon.
See also
Text
Messaging Abbreviations & Smilies in Webopedia's
Quick Reference section.
