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Emoticons and Acronyms

The marks often seen in email and chat roomsare called "emoticons". They are used to convey emotion - a symbol of expressions that might normally be seen and/or heard when communicating with someone face to face. A short list of some commonly used emoticons and their corresponding emotions are:

:-(    Sadness, disappointment
:-)    A smile
:->   A smile
:^]    A smile
:-}    Goofy smile
8-)   Wearing glasses
;-)    A wink
:-&   Tongue-tied
:-o   Shock, surprise
:-p   Sticking tongue out
:-{|   Mustached straight-man
:-)8   Formal occasion
:-x    Speechless

Additional ways of expressing emotion and emphasizing words or thoughts

How else can one emphasize words when no one can 'hear' you? To make words or phrases stand out in email or chat rooms, you can use symbols like * (asterisks), _ (underscores), + (plus sign) and other symbols around words. However, do not type words all in CAPS; doing so is considered to be rude and is interpreted by others as shouting (plus a sentence in all caps is rather difficult to read).

In addition to the use of symbols to *emphasize* a word or short phrase, acronyms became popular as a means of cutting down on the amount of typing needed to get a thought across to others. Some of the commonly used acronyms include:

BTW - By the way
FWIW - For what it's worth
FYI - For your information
IMHO - In my humble opinion
IMO - In my opinion
LOL - Laughing out loud
ROTFL - Rolling on the floor laughing
TIA - Thanks in advance

Want to see more emoticons and acroynms? Check out the following site:
Acronyms, Emoticons & Smilies Page

Help us help you! If you contact Isp City support for assistance please write down any error messages you get when trying to connect to the Internet. Include the name and version of your operating system and the exact text of all error messages. If this information is included in an online case submission or provided to a support representative, it will greatly speed up the troubleshooting process.

Please be aware that some troubleshooting may require uninstallation and reinstallation of operating system files. To ensure that this type of troubleshooting can be accomplished if required, please be sure that you have to have original Operating System CD or Operating system source files on disk on hand.