- published: 19 Jul 2016
- views: 1530
An emoticon (/ᵻˈmoʊtᵻkɒn/ or /iˈmoʊtᵻkɒn/), etymologically a portmanteau of emotion and icon, is a metacommunicative pictorial representation of a facial expression that, in the absence of body language and prosody, serves to draw a receiver's attention to the tenor or temper of a sender's nominal non-verbal communication, changing and improving its usually distinguished as a 3-5 character piece — usually by means of punctuation marks (though it can include numbers and letters) — a person's feelings or mood, though as emoticons have become more popular, some devices have provided stylized pictures that do not use punctuation.
In Western countries, emoticons are usually written at a right angle to the direction of the text. Users from Japan popularized a kind of emoticons called kaomoji (顔文字, often confused with emoji in the West) that can be understood without tilting one's head to the left. This style arose on ASCII NET of Japan in 1986.
As social media has become widespread, emoticons have played a significant role in communication through technology. They offer another range of "tone" and feeling through texting that portrays specific emotions through facial gestures while in the midst of text-based cyber communication.
Say goodnight
She waits for me to
Put out the light
Lay there still
She waits to break my will
Yes, if I know the truth about you...
And in the daylight
A blackbird makes a violent sight
And when she is done
She sleeps beside the wild