Emoticons

The recent rise of informal exchanges like email and online chat has led ever-inventive people to devise "emoticons," keyboard equivalents to the kinds of inflection that voice communication is capable of. Emoticons （and the related category of abbreviations） are a way to add a virtual tone of voice to written messages, as a sampling suggests:

:-)
The basic smiley, used to inflect a joking statement.

;-)
A winking smiley, used to inflect a sarcastic or wry comment.

LOL
laughing out loud

~(_:(])
Homer Simpson