Texting Lingo Part II: The Hidden Meanings of Emoticons

It's that time again, folks. Yes that's right, it is time for me to yammer on about something that really doesn't matter. I promised you all a blog regarding emoticons following my last examination of the nature of the .... Well, here I am to tell you all about exactly what those little faces that get sent to you via text message by your friends, and more importantly by your love interests, really mean.

Let's start with a basic definition of emoticon. An emoticon is a series of punctuation marks that form a face expressing an emotion. In other words, an emoticon can express in punctuation what you could not describe in words. Let's face it, : ) is much more effective than, "I'm happy!"

Now that we know what exactly an emoticon is, let's talk about what they mean. It seems fairly obvious that : ) means I am happy. Perhaps you are writing an email, and you don't want what you are saying to sound quote, "bitchy", so you add in a : ) for good measure. Perhaps you are tired of replying with "lol" to your friends amusing, but menial, texts, so you decide to go with a : ) instead. If you are really fancy, you might even give your smiley man a nose :-). I personally am not a fan of the emoticon with a nose because to me a nose is for blowing and not for emoting, so it is unnecessary in the EMOTicon.

If you are more than just happy, you might replace the parenthesis with a capital D, : D. This face might tell your chum that you are particarly excited about something, like an upcoming event that you will be attending together.

There is of course the converse of the "I'm happy" face and that is the "I'm sad" face. : (. Really what this face says is "I'm downtrodden" especially in the context it is usually used. The sad face is usually used to express disappointment or general unhappiness. For example, "I have to study for my anatomy exam tomorrow : (" says that the studier is quite unwilling to do said studying and that they are unhappy about the fact that they must. If one wanted to express actual sadness through an emoticon they might add an apostrophe, otherwise known as the tear. :'(. This might be used to say you miss someone, but not as a reaction to a death. That would be insensitive. There is no "I'm sorry for your loss" emoticon. This is a case when you may have to use your words.

There are two important faces that I have left out. They may in fact be the most important emoticons of them all for they can be the most telling. First, the notorious ; ), the winking face. Accompanied by the right text message could mean your current man-crush is feeling you. If used wisely, the ; ) could make your beau a little too excited to see you the next day. The winking face says the cheesey, "ya know what I mean" with out the douche-baggery that accompanies a saying like that. For example, "I had fun last night ; )" sounds much better than "I had fun last night, if ya know what I mean". Better to leave more to the imagination with a simple ; ) than sound like a weirdo with that phrase.

The second emoticon is reserved for people who either want to stick their tongue out at someone or perhaps as Trey Songz (full name Tremaine Aldon Neverson) would put it, "I send that little face with the tongue cuz I'm nasty" (See song "Lol :-)" off of the LP Ready) The face Songz is referring to is the : P. The first use of this face as mentioned above is juvenile, but may be necessary at times. I would advice reserving this face for immature arguments, when you're really feeling like an ass hole. The second use is in fact quite nasty as Songz notes. Paired with the right words this emoticon could be suggestive to say the very least. I could give you an example, but, well... ; )

For More Examples See Emoticon Lexicon Courtesy of Jenna Trimboli:

:) happy
:( sad/downtrodden
;) wink wink; i'm feeling/want you
:,) tear
:-) nose!
>:( angry
:0 surprise/shock
:p sticking tongue out
:D excited
:* kiss
:x sick
:-/ perplexed

Negotiations

I must give credit to my mom for this idea, however, I put it into action.

Texting Lingo Part I: On the Nature of ...'s

My next few entries will be in regards to texting, and my thoughts on the particulars of the subject. In my current musing, I'm going to discuss the ambiguous nature of the punctuation that has become a part of our daily texting lingo. I'm talking about the infamous "..." Those pesky dots sneak their way into both your sent and received texts, and do you really know exactly what they mean? Let me answer for you, you probably don't. The truth is that the ... is mostly just really ambiguous, and I'm here to straighten out what the ... means and hopefully prevent further ... situations from happening. Before I go on, I must give Kate Manley her credit. This topic is one Kate and myself often discuss, and many of her ideas will probably be listed here. I'm going to go along like they are my own, and expand on them, but just know that half of the stuff is hers. Cool.

First, allow me to clear the air. Does everyone know what the ... is? When I type ..., I mean "dot, dot, dot", but continually typing "dot, dot, dot" is a pain in my ass, so I'm going to write .... from now on. Moving along.

The ... is probably the most irratating piece of punctuation that one could use in their response to a text message or that one could use to tell a tale of epic proportions. Let me give you some examples to illustrate why it is such an angering piece of puncutation.

Susan: So did you and (insert male's name here) smoosh last night?
Catherine: Yeah...

At this point, Susan is thinking to herself, okay, Catherine's assent says that they did it, but her ... says there's more to the story. But should Susan ask what else happened or is Kathryn going to provide more information right away? Or is Kathryn using the ... to signal that something more happened but that she isn't willing to share that information with Susan? Now, Susan must deliberate about what the ... means before responding appropriately to Catherine. Susan may first think, fuck you, Catherine, and decide not to respond to her. However, after closing her phone and tossing it aside, Susan will decide that she cannot bare to not know what happened. She will sigh heavily, resolving to pick up her phone to ask, "And...?" Here Susan is using the ... as both a signal that she wants the rest of the story and as a way of showing contempt for Kathryn's original .... From here their conversation continues as usual.

There is another distempering situation where people use the ... in a dubious manner. That is when two people are in the middle of a heated discussion usually regarding something that is of little importance. Another example will illustrate the evasive manner in which the ... is used, and might I add abused.


Catherine: I just feel like you don't like (insert male name here). Every time I talk about him or bring him with me, you act like you're disgusted by him or something. Do you not like him?

Susan: I mean, he's not my favorite person. I get a bad vibe from him.

Catherine: What gives you a bad vibe?

Susan: I don't know...


Here we can see that Susan is using the ... to avoid saying what is on her mind. In truth, Susan doesn't like Catherine's current beau because she suspects that he is two-timing Catherine. Regardless, Catherine doesn't know how to respond to Susan because the ... says I'm not willing to say exactly how I feel, but it also says that there is definitely more to be said. Catherine sets her phone aside and calls her boyfriend, who may or may not be a douche, to ask him to come over and comfort her.


How could these situations be righted? It's a daunting question, I know, but there is a simple solution to this problem. Instead of using the ... in the first place, just say what you want to say. In our first sample, Catherine could have just responded to Susan with something like, "Yeah, we did it, I'll tell you more about it when I see you in person." Susan won't have to wonder whether Catherine wants to tell her about her nighttime escapades. Instead, she'll just have to anxiously anticipate the telling of Catherine's story. The second scenario is much more difficult because it will undoubtedly be hard for Susan to tell Catherine how she really feels about her man friend. What Susan should do, however, is leave out the evasive ... and tell Catherine how she feels in a diplomatic manner.


I would like to point out that there are times when you can use the .... One instance might be, when you feel you need a pause in your statement that is longer than just a comma. Perhaps you want to say something like, "I don't know what to do...maybe I'll just go and make the best of it." Here your ... is not at all ambiguous. It clearly indicates that you are not sure of what you want to do, and so you are hesitating before you express a solution to your predicament. Another time you can use the ... is if you want to trail off at the end of what you are saying in order to insinuate something that you feel may be inappropriate to type outloud. For example, you may be talking to a potential mate, and say something like, "Well, we could go out to dinner, or maybe we could just hang out at home. Order food and watch a movie or something..." In this case, the texter and textee both know what that "or something..." means, but it seems crude to say it outloud. The ... alludes to something else, and both parties know what that something else is.

There it is folks. My musings on the .... Please let me know if you have any thoughts that you'd like to share about your experiences with the ...

Stay tuned for the rest of my series on texting lingo. Next time I'll be discussing the hidden meanings of emoticons.