[common] An ASCII glyph used to indicate an emotional state in email
or news. Although originally intended mostly as jokes, emoticons (or
some other explicit humor indication) are virtually required under
certain circumstances in high-volume text-only communication forums
such as Usenet; the lack of verbal and visual cues can otherwise
cause what were intended to be humorous, sarcastic, ironic, or
otherwise non-100%-serious comments to be badly misinterpreted (not
always even by {newbie}s), resulting in arguments and {flame war}s.
Hundreds of emoticons have been proposed, but only a few are in
common use. These include:
[glossary]
[Reference(s) to this entry by made by: {bixie}{frowney}{IRC}{smiley}{talk mode}{winkey}]