The Fundamentals of Emotion Icons for MSN
Messenger
Emotion icons for MSN Messenger (also called
MSN emoticons) are short pieces of ASCII text
that are translated by the MSN messenger
software to images that depict the emotions
that you are trying to convey.
Emotion icons for MSN messenger differ from
your standard run of the mill emoticons in that
most emoticons merely use the ASCII sequence as
the picture.
Whereas the emotion icons for MSN messenger are actual
graphics that the software inserts based on the text
string. This allows for emotion icons for MSN messenger
to be much more complex than with other messenger or email
services since arbitrary images can be used that are based on
ASCII strings that bear no resemblance to the picture that will
be sent.
The most common emoticon is the simple smiley face which is
simply a colon, a hyphen, and an open parenthesis. When
the MSN messenger software encounters this text string, it
replaces the string with an image of a yellow smiling
face. Similarly, the frowning face is replaced by a
yellow image of a face that is frowning. Other common
emotion icons for MSN Messenger include a crying face, a face
sticking its tongue out, a face with glasses, and a surprised
face. Emotion icons for MSN messenger can also feature
more abstract images such as a pair of kissing lips, a dog or
cat head, a vampire bat, and other images.
Be careful when using emotion icons for MSN Messenger.
It is possible to be trying to communicate a statement when you
accidentally type a text string that corresponds to one of the
emotion icons for MSN Messenger. One humorous incident
that is often retold (no one is sure if it is actually a true
story) is that an employee was communicating with his female
boss about his 401(k) retirement account. It just so
happens that the text sequence (k) is one of the emotion icons
for MSN Messenger that corresponds to an image, in this case a
pair of red, puckered lips!