Related Resources • Use Smileys to Add Emotion to Your Emails • More Fun With Emoticons

All people are equal. When they are happy and write email, they all look like this: :-) . When they are not so happy although they write email, they all look like this: :-( .

These are the basic smileys and emoticons used all the time in email messages to express feelings and emotions.

But life is a rich emotional experience and knows more than just three or four different states. Smileys, too, can have more than the basic faces, and they can express a multitude of emotions.

Good, Bad, and Spaghetti

There is, for example, the smiley that indicates an especially sarcastic remark: :-> . Use it when you imagine your face looking just like that. Of course, you can combine the especially sarcastic smiley with the winking face: ;-> , but that looks like overkill in many situations.

If you were quite sarcastic in your comments and did forget the :-> smiley, you may well get a tongue stuck out to you: :-P (or :-p if it's a tiny tongue).

While intended to be funny (and I think tongues sticked out are funny as such), that could make you not only sad, but very, very sad and devastated: :-C . This must be the most horrifying emoticon. I don't want to see that in an email from you, ok?

But if I see it, I might well say: "Oh." and look like this (a bit shocked, a bit perplexed, a bit surprised): :-0 . If I know you well, I might try sending you a kiss :-* to cheer you up a bit. Did it work?

No? Oh my! No time is a good time to get drunk, but it might well happen (to you, not me, of course!). Your messages become funnier, a bit more confusing and they include lots of this: :*) . At least it makes you smile physically. And it makes you tired: |-) .

The next morning is bad, physically: %-/ . But soon you feel better, and you're ready for lots and lots of spaghetti: :-& . And everything is gonna be all right.

The Smileys in this Article

"My face is my passport."

Vladimir Horowitz

bye,
-einz.

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