Smiley
From Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia written in simple English for easy reading.
A smiley (also called a smily, smilie, smile, or emoticon) is a tiny picture (often a face) made using symbols. Here is a smiley:
:-)
When you tilt your head to the left, this looks like a smiling face. It has a colon ":" for the eyes, a hyphen "-" for the nose, and a parenthesis ")" for the mouth. A smiley is often used to indicate sarcasm: "Don't you think tests in school are really fun? :-)" but it can also mean happiness in general: "I bought a new computer today! :-)"
There are other kinds of smileys: the frown :-( is used to indicate sadness, while a tongue sticking out :-P is very often sarcasm, while it can also mean yuck: "Pistachio ice cream? :-P"
More smileys are X-P (really yucky), :-D (laughing), ;-) (a wink), or :-| (disappointment).
Some people use different symbols: sometimes people use "=" for the eyes ("=-)") or they do not use a nose (":)"). Also sometimes smileys are playfully put the "wrong way" ("(-:").
