Creating Emoticons with Symbols

Texting has become the choice form of communication. Whether it is the tiny keyboards or always being in a hurry, looking for shortcuts, we are creating a new language. With abbreviations such as BRB, be right back, and TTYL, talk to you later, texting brings with it a completely new learning curve.

If the abbreviations were not enough to learn, now we have emoticons. What the heck is an emoticon you say? An emoticon is a character or group of symbols put together to form a character. Everyone is using them now, so get on board.

How many people know what to call the symbols? Are we just using the little curvy thingy or line thing without knowing what the real name of the symbols really is? Most of us are. I must admit, that I was not sure what to call a few of them myself. I asked myself if we really learned the names in school. Perhaps they taught them, but until now, I only needed to remember the names of the ones commonly used. I always wondered why we had some of those characters, and now I know. It was so we could make cute little emoticons on our cell phones. Someone back then knew we would need them eventually!

Here are just a few and the common texting usage:

& is called an Ampersand and is a substitute for the word and

* is an Asterisk and this character makes a great little nose for a smiley face

@ is an At sign and is commonly used to say this where you are at, I am @ the store. It is also part of an email address

\ is a Backslash and it is part of a website address

^ is a Caret

/ is a Forward Slash and is also part of a website address

` is a Grave

{ } are called Left and Right Braces. These make cute little smiley face mouths.

[ ] are called Left and Right Brackets. These are also used to make smiley faces. The [ makes a very stern frown.

( ) are Left and Right Parenthesis and make perfect little mouths for your smiley face.

< > these Less Than and Greater Than symbols are used to make sweet little noses

+ the Plus sign also makes a nose.

~ the Tilde is one of my favorites

_ is an Underscore, also called a Hard Space. Occasionally you will run into a situation where passwords or other situations will not accept a space. Use the Hard Space as a filler or space.

0 yes this is a Zero and it makes a cute little nose.

O is just the capital letter O and gives your emoticon face that "Oh" look.

Many cell phones now have an emoticon insert function. However, if you are one of those people that want to get it done quickly, learn to create your own. What? :-O It is easy. Just play around and you will find yourself using emoticons to express emotion all the time. I promise. :-)