ESL: Emoticons
 The basic form of computer
communication between people involves typing. This is fast and cheap. But written language
lacks emotional tone. To solve this problem, people developed a series of little pictures
of the face, drawn using the symbols on a computer keyboard. These faces are called
"emoticons," a combincation of "emotion" and "icon."
The first emoticon looked like this: :-). Turn your head sideways to look at it and you
will see a face with two eyes, a nose, and a smiling mouth. (Sometimes emoticons are
called "smileys.") Thus, if you typed a sentence and you wanted to be sure the
persons receiving the sentence understood that you were not serious, you would add the
smiley face at the end of your sentence.
Other emoticons were quickly developed and expanded to include self-description in
addition to emotions. Here is a list of emoticons with a list of possible meanings. See
how many you can match. :-)
1. :-(
2. ;-)
3. :-|
4. >;->
5. %-)
6. 8-)
7. 8:-)
8. :-)-8
9. :-[
10. :-)B
11. :-~)
12. :-@
13. |-O
14. :-D
15. :-X
16. B===>
17. [:-)
18. :-+
19. d:-)
20. :-Q |
a. I’m a big girl.
b. I’m a little girl.
c. I’m a vampire.
d. I’m exhausted.
e. I am upset.
f. I’m indifferent.
g. I’m listening to my Walkman.
h. I have a large penis.
i. I’m smoking.
j. I’m wearing glasses.
k. I’m wearing my baseball cap.
l. I’m just joking.
m. I am bored.
n I’ve been working for 15 hours.
o. I am laughing.
p. I am screaming (angry, or frustrated).
q. I have a cold.
r. I just made a lewd remark.
s. I have large breasts.
t. My lips are sealed. |
Answers >>
Send this page to a friend.
Back to Magellan's Log 19
Magellan's
Log front page
For more ESL exercises, go to the ESL
Index. |