Emoticons :) and Acronyms

Oscar Sodani is a founder of Help2Go and owner of Help2Go Networks, an IT consulting firm in the Washington D.C. area. Oscar holds the CISSP certification as well as industry certifications from Microsoft, Cisco and Novell.

:-P

What does it mean? What you just saw was an emoticon, and it serves as a way to quickly express feelings using keys on the keyboard to represent a face or emotion. Here is a list of common emoticons.

Communication is a major part of why the Internet is popular. Emoticons and acronyms are used by a large percentage of the net-savvy. Don't get left out of the conversation!

In this article, you will learn:

• What emoticons are
• Common emoticons and their meaning
• Common acronyms and shorthand used in e-mail and chat conversations

You Made Me Smile :)

An emoticon is just a simple drawing of a face, using two or three keyboard characters. The trick is that you need to tilt your head to the left to recognize what it is. The colon ":" character represents the eyes. The parentheses ")" character in the :) emoticon represents a smiling mouth. Together, the two characters :) represent a smiling or happy person.

Below we list the most commonly used emoticons, along with what they mean. To help you visualize them, we've also included an image for each one that better shows the emotion it is representing.

Emoticon Meaning Right-side up :) :-)   A smiling or happy person :( :-(   A sad person :P :-P   Sticking tongue out :| :-| Mad ;) ;-) Winking 8) 8-) Surprised :D :-D Laughing :O :-O Wow! :-* A kiss :-X :-T My lips are sealed/ Tight-lipped %-) Up all night / very tired Acronyms Now that you know all the major emoticons, it is time to learn some of the quick abbreviations used in e-mail and chat communication. brb I'll be right back btw By the way, cya See you later (See ya!)   Grin imho In my humble opinion, l8r See you later (Later!) lol Laugh out loud oic Oh, I see rotfl I am rolling on the floor laughing sup What's up? (Hello) thx Thanks tia Thanks in advance ttyl Talk to you later tx Thanks wb Welcome back wtf What the ****? wtg Way to go! There you have it! Everything you need to communicate online without getting completely lost in the conversation. There are literally hundred of emoticons and acronyms that have been created, but in our experience, these are the only ones that are universally used and understood. Now go out there and chat like a pro!

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