Internet Slang: Emoticons
творческая работа учащихся по английскому языку (11 класс) по теме

МИНИСТЕРСТВО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ РЕСПУБЛИКИ БАШКОРТОСТАН

X городская научно-практическая конференция

Секция английского языка

МОУ «Средняя общеобразовательная школа села Амзя»

Реферат на тему:

Выполнила ученица 11А  

класса

Проверила: Таразова Г.Ш.

Амзя

2007 г.

Contents

Introduction        

Emoticons        

History        

Western Style        

East Asian style        

Conclusion        

Used Literature        

Appendix

A List of Emoticons

Introduction

“I don’t give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.”

Mark Twain

The oldest known symbols created with the purpose of communication through time are the cave paintings. Cave dwellers lived during a time called the Stone Age. They painted their pictures on the walls of caves, thousands of years ago. Writing had not yet been invented, so people couldn't write down their thoughts. Later hieroglyphs and letters appear and it gives good opportunity to exchange with information in written form. Nowadays the luggage of hieroglyphs, letters and symbols is tremendous.  

In the XXth century, the Internet has revolutionized the computer and communications world like nothing before. The invention of the telegraph, telephone, radio, and computer set the stage for this unprecedented integration of capabilities. Have you ever received an e-mail containing a series of symbols you're embarrassed to admit you don't understand? :-), or ;~)? By its nature, the Web makes communicating faster and easier. Because of this, a kind of Web language has emerged, using symbols and acronyms to express larger phrases and feelings - on cyber time. In verbal communication, or business communication, in the real world, things tend to be stated clearly and in full terms.  Pretty much everyone knows basic abbreviations like "w/o" for "without".  No one says "double-u slash oh", they say "without".  It's quicker with your voice to not abbreviate, most of the time. But with voice we can express our emotions.  People you are talking to on the Internet cannot see you it can be difficult to express emotions using words alone. For this reason, emoticons have developed over the years as a replacement for facial expressions and other emotional cues lacking in text-only communication. When we communicate face to face, non-verbal communication, such as body language, facial expressions and tone of voice plays a crucial part in how someone interprets what we say. Emoticons allow us to personalize and put non-verbal communication into our written messages, to create e-mail moods. The key to communication is language; the emotion allows people to express feelings quickly and effectively through written word. So an emoticon is a version of shorthand developed by Internet users to help express emotions and thoughts without typing out the words.

The purpose of our work is to get acquainted with extraordinary symbols used by internet users. We will try to analyse some of them.  As far as, emoticons are used in the chats and forums, the written messages will serve as a basis of our work. The tasks of this work are to find the examples of the emoticons in the chats and forums and to cover the nature of emoticons.

Emoticons

The written word on the Net is built for speed, not for show.

At the dawn of the internet era, BBS-users discovered that the lack of face-to-face communication resulted in conflict when, for example, parodies or humorous comments were taken seriously. Even telephone users could use voice tone to indicate anger, sarcasm or humor.

Communication is often not so much what we write or say but how we write and often what we do not say.1 Thus, meaning in real-world chat messages depends not only on the words we use but also on how we express meaning through nonverbal cues. Online chat is simple, direct, and unrestrained. While it contains many of the elements of face-to-face conversation, it differs from ordinary chat in that it is a textual representation of conversation.

As such, they needed to find a way to express the tone of the messages they were posting. The first emoticons were a godsend, and prevented many an awkward, confusing or flammable situation. Over the years, with the evolution of the BBS into the Internet, and then the explosion of online websites, forums and chat interfaces, the proto-emoticon regularly evolved into a myriad sets, mostly unique to their hosts, and even developed into codes that were translated by the communication engine into images and sometimes even animations.

All of the essential nonverbal communication that takes place when you talk to someone is missing in email. And, as we all know, more important than what you say often is how you say it. The information encoded in the tone, mimics and gestures is lost.

Of course, most of the time we do not know that we are sending sublime messages alongside the pure verbal communication. We do not know it with a good reason: we would not want to tell it.   Still, this information is essential, and there is a lot we do want to tell about how we feel. If all the undercover information that goes with a message is missing, this is destined to be a source of formidable misunderstandings.

Misunderstandings can always happen, often they are funny, but they can also make life extremely difficult. Imagine receiving an email that says: "And, btw, I'd love to eat you." If you are not sure concerning the nature of your girlfriend's intentions (are they are cannibalistic or quite obvious?), you'll pause for a moment, stunned and irritated.

Not Everybody is Shakespeare. When you write an email, you can use language to express your feelings. Depending on how gifted you are as a writer, your mileage will vary. Using the means of language is difficult when it comes to emotions, and it is often unnecessarily cumbersome. That's why shorthand has developed. They are called emoticons or smileys, and they offer a great way to convey emotions via email.

Emoticons are widely used in many different areas of Internet. E-mail, chat rooms, and online conversations like instant messaging are the Web’s truly unique method of communication. Electronic communications are somewhat like a cross between a letter without details and a phone call without vocal tones and expressions. In order to convey these missing qualities, a new shorthand can indicate when you are happy, when you are sad,   and even when you want to scream.   This shorthand uses standard keyboard symbols to produce cute little pictures called emoticons or smileys.

An emoticon, also called a smiley, is a sequence of printable characters such as :), ^-^/, or :-) or a small image that is intended to represent a human facial expression and convey an emotion. Emoticons are a form of paralanguage commonly used in email messages, in online bulletin boards, or in chat rooms. The word emoticon is a portmanteau based on emotion and icon. A similar portmanteau, verticon (based on vertical and icon), is sometimes used when referring to the East Asian style of emoticon.

Emoticons serve as shorthand for emotions, and are also useful as garnishes to the words, to indicate that you are sad, or joking, or angry, etc.  People often fail to grasp sarcasm or satire in written material, and emoticons are useful to reflect the attitude.

Emoticons are useful, since they can at least partially take the place of facial expressions, gestures, and tone of voice, all of which give clues to meaning beyond what your mere words convey, in face to face dialogue.

Emoticons are a form of paralanguage commonly used as extended symbols in e-mail, instant messaging, online chat, bulletin boards, and Internet forums; without them, users believe that simple statements could be misinterpreted due to the lack of facial expression, body language, and vocal intonation in purely written communications.

Emoticons are made through the use of different combinations of numbers, letters and punctuation symbols that are found on a standard computer keyboard. There are hundreds and even thousands of emoticons that have been created.

The three most common emoticons are:

:-)      The standard smiley face showing happiness.

:-(      The sad face. The user is unhappy.

;-)      The winky face shows a flirtatious or sarcastic remark.

Lean to the Left

To get the full impact of the emoticons, just look at them while leaning your head to the left.

Other emoticons include:

:,(      Crying

:-0     Yelling

:-@    Screaming

:-X     A kiss

:-|      Frowning

|-o     Bored

#-)     Oh, what a night

:-I      Indifferent

>>:-<< Mad

  @.@ WOW! (eyes bugging out)

:-P or  :-p  or  :-6  Sticking tongue out

:~-(   Shed a tear

Some Clever Combinations

Emoticons are so popular that they have advanced into other areas. Although these emoticons have nothing to do with emotions, they are fun.

p:-)    Baseball fan

~:o    A baby

{:-{) User has a moustache and a toupee

:// A guy with duck tape over his mouth

Person or Character Emoticons

Emoticons are even used to represent famous people, cartoon characters, and animals. See if you can spot the resemblance or the connection to the person or character noted.

:-.)        Cindy Crawford or Marilyn Monroe

  +-<:-) The pope

=|:-)=   Uncle Sam

C|:-=    Charlie Chaplin

:-)8       Dolly Parton

:$)         Donald Trump

*<|:o)>  Santa Claus

%-~     Picasso

3:*>     Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

8(:-)     Mickey Mouse

:-----}   Pinocchio

@@@@8^) Marge Simpson

8:]     A gorilla

:8)         Pig

:>( )<   Penguin

*<:-) Santa Claus  

8-)  Wearing sunglasses  

 +<:-)  The Pope  

C=:-)  Chef

   *<):0)  Clown  

?:^[]  Jim Carrey

   5:-)  Elvis  

   %-)  A Happy Drunk  

There are endless possibilities because people are very good at creating and interpreting pictures as faces. Creating emoticons have become a hobby for some. Even if a person  doesn’t want to spend the time to create his own, understanding the existing  cute little computer faces will certainly add to enjoyment of online communications.

Some variants are also more common in certain countries because of reasons like keyboard layouts, for example the smiley =) is common in Scandinavia and Finland where the keys for = and ) are placed right beside each other and both need the use of the shift key. There also exists the use of umlauts to achieve emoticons that aren't tilted to the side. For example, Ö is the upright version of :O (meaning that one is surprised).

Sideways emoticons are a more-recent innovation, and seem to be mostly Korean in invention, or at least that's where they were popularized. These are basically the same as the original emoticons in usage, and there are multiple versions of each style.  The eyes are made with ^'s, and are thought to be copied from anime style animation, where eyes are often very stylized and oversized, and happy smiling characters often have just a slit shaped like the ^ character.  The middle character is the nose or mouth, depending on the expression

^_^ -- Basic smile.  Also ^~^, ^ї^, etc. (ї=0191)

(^ї^) -- Face with ears.

~_~ -- Sleeping face.

However, if the email has more than one or two emoticons in it, a person is probably overusing them, and if he has one on each paragraph, or even each sentence, that beats everything.  A person shouldn't spend all day worrying about it, but scan over his just-written paragraph.  If the meaning is clear, then there's no need to throw in redundant emoticons.  Some people are getting into the habit of throwing these in nearly every sentence, and not meaning it in any way.

Nonverbal communication adds nuance or richness of meaning that cannot be communicated by verbal elements alone. Given time and experience, some of the same richness of real-time, face-to-face communication can occur in a virtual, text-based medium. The following actions can foster this virtual communication.

History

The first known instance of using text characters to represent a sideways smiling (and frowning) face is in a newspaper advertisement in the New York Herald Tribune, March 10, 1953, on page 20, columns 4–6. Promoting the film Lili, starring Leslie Caron, the ad read as follows:

Today You'll laugh :) You'll cry :( You'll love [Heart-shaped face] _Lili_

The film opened nationwide, so the ad may have run in many newspapers. In 1963 the smiley face, a yellow button with a smile and two dots representing eyes, was invented by Harvey Ball. This smiley presumably inspired later emoticons; the most basic emoticon image is small yellow smilley face.

Several sites on the World Wide Web (such as Connected Earth) assert that Kevin Mackenzie proposed -) as a joke-marker in April 1979, on a message board called MsgGroup. It was a tongue-in-cheek — the hyphen was a tongue, not a nose. Although it has two out of the three characters of the smiley, its intended interpretation was different and it doesn't appear to have inspired the later smileys. The creator of the original ASCII emoticons :-) and :-(, with a specific suggestion that they be used to express emotion, was Scott Fahlman; the text of his original proposal, posted to the Carnegie Mellon University computer science general board on 19 September 1982 (11:44), was considered lost for a long time. It was however recovered twenty years later by Jeff Baird, from old backup tapes.

19-Sep-82 11:44    Scott E  Fahlman             :-)

From: Scott E  Fahlman

I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:        

:-)        

Read it sideways.  Actually, it is probably more economical to mark

things that are NOT jokes, given current trends.  For this, use        :-(

 Many combinations of ordinary text characters were known to produce face-like patterns, which were used as emoticons.

In Internet forums, text emoticons are often automatically replaced with small corresponding images, which came to be called emoticons as well. Originally, these image emoticons were fairly simple and replaced only the most straightforward and common text strings, but over time they became so complex that they more specialized emoticons are often input using a menu of sometimes hundreds of emoticons. Often these menus go beyond the realm of emoticons and also have other objects such as musical intrstuments and can sometimes make sounds upon receiving the message. Emoticons have developed over the years as a replacement for facial expressions and other emotional cues lacking in text-only communication; the purpose is to avoid misunderstandings due to the lack of contextual information.

Western Style

There are two styles of emoticons: Western style and Asian style. Traditionally, the emoticon in Western style is written from left to right, the way one reads and writes in most Western cultures. Thus, most commonly, you'll see the eyes on the left, followed by the nose and mouth. To more easily recognise them, tilt your head towards your left shoulder (or occasionally towards your right shoulder if the "top" of the emoticon is towards the right).

The smile is represented with a basic smiley :-). The colon represents the eyes, the hyphen is for the nose, and the parenthesis is for the mouth.

Many variants exist with different symbols substituted for the basic ones. The symbol for the nose is often omitted, for example :) or ;). When the colon is replaced with the equals sign, =), the nose is almost always omitted (so one would not see =-), for example).

Basic examples

The following examples all use the basic form, but each of them can be transformed to be rotated, to lose the dash and/or to replace the eyes symbol. Lately it has become common to omit the dash.

:-) smile

:-( frown: sadness or sympathy

:-/ somewhat unhappy/discontent or undecided

:-| confused or unsure what to say

;-) wink

:-D wide grin

:-P or :-p tongue sticking out: joke or sarcasm

B-) or 8-) has (sun)glasses: looking cool

:-o or :-O expresses surprise

:-x "I shouldn't have said that"

:'-( shedding a tear of beauty / sadness

:o) or :o( larger nose, usually means tongue-in-cheek

>:-) or }:-) lowered eyebrows, evil or mean, a devil

0:-) halo over the head, good or benevolent, an angel, innocent

East Asian style

Users from East Asia popularized a style of emoticons known as verticons , which can be understood without turning one's head to the left. These styles of faces roughly resemble the style commonly found in Japanese anime and manga cartoons. These are usually in the format of *_*, where the asterisks indicate the eyes, and the central character, usually an underscore, is the mouth. When a period is used for the mouth, it is often meant to make the person look cuter, especially for women. Alternatively, the mouth can be left out entirely. A single ', or double " quote can be appended to the emoticon to imply apprehension, embarassment or the anime sweatdrop.

Basic examples

Note that for most of these, it is possible to use a period for a mouth (^.^) or leave out the mouth entirely (^^).

^_^ smiley

~_~ content

`_^ or ^_~ wink

>_< angry, frustrated

^o^ laughing maniacally

\\^o^/ very excited (raising hands into the air)

-_- annoyed (trying to hide annoyance), also sleeping (eyes shut)

¬_¬ focused at a particular person

;_; crying

T_T crying a LOT / deadpan stare

@_@ dazed

o_O or O_o confused surprise (one eye raised)

>_0 or 0_< flinching, ouch!

>_> or <_< yeah, right...

._. small - hiding, discreet, intimidated

$_$ thinking about money

x_x dead or knocked out

Complex examples =^.^= blushing, or a cat face (mischievous)

~~~~>_<~~~~ weeping horribly

^_^; small sweatdrop (embarrassed)

<(^_^)>,(>^_^)>, etc. Kirby, often repeated to indicate dancing.

<(¬_¬)> focused at a particular person with ear-phones

\\(^o^)/ very excited; '\\' & '/' are arms in this case.

(;_;) tears, cry, very sad, very painful

>_< or >< — an emoticon signifying frustration or embarassment

>_> — an emoticon used to indicate sarcasm or suspicion, sometimes used with <_< to indicate shifty eyes

T__T — Crying (often implying crying in a humorous way)

>^.^< — cat face or a face that has crinkled up with laughter

\\,,/. — Throwing the horns

x__x — dead, unconscious, etc.

^__~ — wink, reluctant

@_@ — symbol for a very tired person trying to stay awake, going crazy, dizzy.

:-) smiley face (as with many things in computerspeak, the reader should view this emoticon sideways)

;-) winking

-__- — disgusted, annoyed, etc.

^o^ — laughing, cheerful, joyous, similar to ^^

^^__^^ — Angel

(^_^) — Happy face

[*_*] — Scared, in awe

><)))*> — somethings fishy

=^__^= — Cat face, blushing

-^__^- — Blushing

=_= - tired, with bags under eyes

<^__^;> — symbol for embarrassment commonly used by anime fans

Conclusion

To sum up emoticons are very popular nowadays. It’s a new way of communication. They are considered to be international, because people from different countries can easily understand each other. Emoticons have become an important part of the worldwide online social culture because they make it easy to communication, emotions quickly - something that many people find difficult to express using words. At present moticons allow people to express feeling and communicate more than the written word. Emoticons can enhance email and chat room dialogues. For example, humor and sarcasm don’t come across well in text. But a smile at the end of a sentence can make a dramatic difference in how it is perceived. Emoticons can also help save time, and generally help to lighten the mood within a message. The key to using emoticons correctly is to use them sparingly and in the right setting.

But emoticons tend to look like hieroglyphics to someone who has never before seen them. If a person use emoticons within the text messages, any more than one in a sentence or three in a paragraph can make him stand out as a newbie to using emoticons. Emoticons may seem annoying and unprofessional in a business setting.

In conclusion, these funny symbols prove that people are very creative. Human imagination has no bounds. Thanks to this fact written language is rich in new symbols. Perhaps a new trend will appear in the art: emoticon-art. A man will create a masterpiece using only standard punctuation.

LEARN AND INVENT.

Used Literature

1. Hiltz, S.R., & Johnson, K., Turoff M. (1986). Experiments in group decision making. Human Communication Research, 13, 225-252.
2. Macmillan English Dictionary/ Rundell M., 2006.
3. Walther, B. J., & D'ddario, P. K. (2001). The impacts of emoticons on message interpretation in computer-mediated communication. Social Science Computer Review, 19, (3), 324-347.
4. Горшунов Ю. В. Новая аббревиатурная лексика английского языка. Бирск, 1998.

A List of Emoticons

<°)))>< Goldfish

^_^ or n_n Smile

(~_^) or (^_~) Wink

>_< , >.< or >_> Disgusted, annoyed

qq or q_q or q.q or T_T or ;_; Crying

o_q or p_o or p.o or o.q Monocle

<_< or <.< or >> or >_> or ¬.¬ Looking one way

-_- Annoyed

x_x Knocked out, dead

._. Feeling sad or small

o_O or o.O or O_o or O.o Surprise or amazement

O¯o Upside-down

\\//. Star Trek (live long and prosper)

~=~ Flying hamburger, generally used in E-mail

\m/ or \m/_ or \nn/ Representing the Corna or "devil horns" sign, used for rocking or metal music

o/ Waving or hi-five

(¤Д¤) fear, or bad surprise

/@_@/ Staring

("\(^_^)/") Bear hug

<^> or ,|,, Flip the bird; can be replaced with "<^ ^>" with a face in the middle for more dramatic effect.

\m/>_<\m/ Heavy Metal

= ]Or :-) or :) or =) or :D or =D or :^) Smile or Happy

 :-( or :( or =( Frown or Sad

XP Straining, disgust, bad joke, dead, dead from laughing, silliness

XD Laughing hard (often taken as Cartman from the television show South Park)

X8 laughing hard while covering mouth with hands

 :-/ or :-\ or =/ or =\ Skepticism, annoyance, uneasiness, or a slight frown; dissatisfaction, lack of favourable opinion on the subject, undecided

 :-| or :| Indecision, deadpan, a lack of response, or indifference; shock - also often used with a contrasting statement to convey biting sarcasm (e.g. "That was hilarious. :-|")

 ;-) or ;) or ;] Wink

 :-D or :D Wide grin, happy smile

(: :) grinning from ear to ear.

 :-P or :-p or :P or :p or =P or =p or :-|tongue tongue sticking out, or a Blowing a raspberry; used to convey a joke, light-hearted sarcasm, inappropriateness, relief, mild resignation, humorous resignation

B-) Wearing cool glasses (often sunglasses). Indicates pride in something

8-| Wearing nerdy glasses. Indicates dislike/"uncoolness" in something

 :-O or :O or =O Surprise, shock

 :-S or :S Confused/Frustrated

 :-$ or :$ Shyness, embarrassment

 :-x or =X or :X sealed lips; used to convey "I shouldn't have said that" or sometimes shocked silence; can be taken to mean "no comment"

 :-* kiss (the emoticon :-** indicates returning a kiss)

 :'-( or :'( or :_( or :*( or :…( or ;_; or =,[ or :,[ Shedding a tear

>:-O Angry/Yelling

>:-( or >:[ Angry/Grumpy

>:E Anger or hatred, bearing teeth

>:-) or >:] Evil smile

0:-) or O:] Halo over the head, an angel, innocence

D-: or D: Horror (read right to left)(Sometimes referred to as "oh noes")

 :3 A kitten face - being cute

X3 Combination of XD and :3, sometimes used with "Yay!" when intending to be cute

=3 A variation of :3, with long, vertical eyes instead

<3 A "heart" as in "I <3 U"; sometimes parodically extended to "<33333" or replaced with 4

 :9 Tasty, licking lips

[8^0) Mask, shocked

 : - ] I am kidding

 : - [ I am serious / And sad

 :-*) I am blushing

d=D or q=D Smiley with a cap/hat being either reversed or backwards. Often used as being happy for no reason at all.

----<--{@ or --{---@ or --<--<-@ or @-,-'-,-- A rose

d^_^b or d-_-b listening to music

@-_-@ Princess Leia

)-0_0-( astonishment

(^_^) or (^-^) or (^ ^) or (^.^) smiley

(6_^) zombie smiley / smiley with eye hanging out (originally typoed)

(^,,^) vampire smiley

(`_^) or (^_~) wink (or alternatively quirked eyebrow in latter case)

(>_<) or (>_>) in pain, or frustration

(<_>) sad

(\_/) evil

(-_-) semi-angry or upset or sighing

 (^o^) singing, or laughing maniacally

(~_O) or (~_Q) one-eyed pirate or monocle user in latter case.

\(^o^)/ very excited (raising hands)

(-_-) or (~_~) or (=_=) annoyance, resignation, or sleeping (eyes shut), grumpy

(~.~) sleepy

(-_-;) or (^_^') or (^_^);; or ^_^" nervousness, or sweatdrop (embarrassed; semicolon can be repeated)

(-_-#) or (-_-¤) or (-_-") or (-_-+) vein (used to show anger)

(¬_¬) eyeing something or someone, or otherwise glaring, sometimes used as an expression of rolling one's eyes

(<_<) or (>_>) or (c_c) skepticism, looking around suspiciously

(>_~) or (~_<) suspicious / accusatory glance

(;_;) or (T_T) or (TT.TT) or (ToT) crying

(@_@) dazed, confused

(o_O) or (o_0) confused surprise, disturbed

(o_@) extremely disturbed (more so than above)

(0_<) flinch, nervous wink

(O_O) shocked (also O.o - one eye smaller than the other)

(._.) or (,_,) intimidated, sad, ashamed, disappointed

(^3^) or (^ 3^) kiss, mocking, mischievous

($_$) money eyes; thinking about money ( also sometimes changeable to other currency symbols such as (¥_¥) )

(x_x) or (+_+) dead, exhausted or knocked out; giving up, lost, confused

(n_n) or (n.n) happy, pleased

(u_u) or (u.u) annoyance, sarcasm, sometimes disappointment

(v_v) or (v.v) silent resignation

(9_9) or (@.@) rolling eyes

(e_e) mischief, distrust, exasperation

(e_o) or (o_e) eye twitching

*-* or *_* or *.* or *0* or *o* or *w* or *x* or *¬* star-struck

(",) or (>_,>) or (<_,<) smirk

("o) side shocked

(-.-)zzZ or -_-zzZ sleeping

(o)_(o) alternative for tired; sometimes used to illustrate crazed

 ;o; or ;O; crying loudly/shouting

T_T or TT_TT or Y_Y or TToTT or T.T or T-T exaggerated crying, so that the eyes are closed and tears stream down the face

I_I "What?", mellow

owo or OwO or òwo surprise

¬3¬ or ¬w¬ or ¬.¬ or ¬¬ or ¬_¬ Sarcastic face

nwn or nWn Happy, kitty face

n//n Proud

x.X or x.x or x_x Dead

(f-_-)f Zombie

o__-<3 Rock Lee winking

t(0.0t) or t(-_-t) or t(^^t) or ..|..('_') ..|.. double flipping the bird

<>_<> alien's face

\m/ d-_-b \m/ |mb dm| Rocker listening to music

(ô ô) boy (sometimes also used to indicate surprise)

(ö ö) girl

(ó ò) surprised, scared

(ò ó) angry

(ó ô) quizzical or "Indeed" (designed to mimic Star Trek's Mr. Spock)

(╥_─) -_-; -_-' annoyed, hiding frustration, dread

=^_^= blushing, or a cat face (mischievous)

*^_^* blushing

d-_-b listening to music

fO_o scratching head

 ?_? confused/curious/not comprehending

d-_-b listening to music

~~~~>_<~~~~ weeping horribly

c= UoU;; exasperation (notice the anime bubble; can be abbreviated, V.V;;)

( ~^_^)~ dancing

(9ò_ó)=@ fighting, throwing a punch

Q(^.^Q) winner

w-('u')-w Kilroy was here (extensible)

p(^o^)q good luck

b(~_^)d, d-(^_^)-b, (b^_^)b, etc. thumbs-up

q(-_-)p thumbs-down

(^^ .)\\// giving the V-sign

\m/>_<\m/ rockin' out

\,,/(^_^)\,,/ happy rockin'

,,\/.(^_^) giving the peace sign

(¬_¬)/¯ "It's good... to go!"

\0-0/ wearing glasses (nerd)

 ;_; or !_! 2 eyes crying.

(ρ_-)o sleepy / rubbing eyes

( ._.)ø or ø(._. ) writing

(._.) Sometimes used in place of (o.o); used as shock or confusion. (.-.) is just the upside down version of this emoticon

¯\(°_o)/¯ dumbstruck

("\(.:...:.)/") Monster with claws.

p(^o^)q Cheer!

><((((º> Something fishy.