If you want to fully appreciate the variations shown below, it will require a bit more than head-tilting skill. Take a moment to focus on each of these smileys until the cartoon image "clicks in" and the mood comes out. The best technique is to stare at the eyes, or right between the eyes, and allow the nose to "pop out" at you. Over a hundred sample images are given below, and for the sake of brevity they appear close to one another rather than alone at the the end of text they were meant to highlight. Please resist the temptation to scan by them quickly without making contact. If you're going to read this article at all, it's worth spending the extra few seconds to look each one of them in the eye and absorb its message.
:~) :^) :7) :) :') :`) :,) :.) :")Noses may also be broken, flattened, simian, porcine, or even bozoed:
:?) :$) :=) :@) :&) :0) :+) :*)The digits make interesting noses (notwithstanding Mother's admonition to avoid using of digits when keeping one's nose clean):
:1) :2) :3) :4) :5) :6) :8) :9)With noses down for the count, let's cast our gaze to the orbs. Why should we restrict ourselves to the beady little colon-eyes we've used so far? An simple, but very expressive variation is the raised eyebrow, to indicate irony, scorn, or other moods (with appropriate mouths) and grimaces:
;-) ;-| ;-{ ;-/ ;-\ ;-, ;-` ;-<
(The obvious joke about the semicolon has been omitted here,
largely because this text has been written using only half-ASCII codes.)
Eyes can also be made to wink, blink, crinkle, twinkle, tear, cheer, or whatever:
,-) >-) !-) `-) .-| '-( "-) %-) ?-)The further possibilities are indeed endless, and the combinations shall be left to the reader as an exercise. (For three-character smileys alone, using only the thirty punctuation marks found on the standard keyboard, there are over twenty-seven thousand possibilities to consider. Adding alphanumerics, the total rises to nearly a million. While most of these are unusable, interesting smileys will sometimes arise from the most unlikely combinations.)
Other punctuation may be used to decorate, camoflage, or personalize a smiley. For example, some of these have fedoras, various types of beards and ustaches, turbans, glasses, and even a stovepipe hat!
<:-) :-)# :-)> :-&) :-%)> @:-) 8-) =|:-)Together, the beard and hat vaguely suggest Uncle Sam (or is it Abe Lincoln?):
=|:-)#
Since few punctuation symbols are hollow, the use of letters can help when a more-expressive, open-mouthed (or wide-eyed) effect is required. It should be noted that, unlike punctuation, the appearence of alphanumeric glyphs may change radically with choice of type style, so that some of these simply will not work in certain fonts.
Delightfully, a great big smile derives from the capital letter "D":
:-DUh oh! and The letters "O" and "o" (and the digit zero), put a surprising new face on the smileys.
:-0 :-O :-oIt may BE that the letters "B" and "E" suggest protruding teeth, but in a cartoonish fashion (that may look ridiculous or not even work in some fonts):
:-B :-EStick the letters "P" and "p" in the mouth to put a very expressive but insulting face on things.
:-P :-b :-d :-qSince noses come in many shapes, many lower-case letters and a few UPPER-CASE ones can be used to make a convincing (if sometimes silly) smiley's nose. For these nosy examples, it may take a bit more staring than usual to capture the intended effect (and results will vary depending on fonts available in your browser). The following collection is not meant to be exhaustive:
:a) :b) :c) :d) :e) :j) :q) :u) :A) :C) :U) :S) :Z)Letters are best used for mouthing off and may not lend themselves well to nosiness; however there are occasions when a well-read letter can catch your I, fill your cups or glasses, lower your eyeshade, patch you up, or put you to sleep.
I-) B-) D-) P-) S-) Z-)If a Cyclops (or flying-saucer pilot), best expresses your mood, then try the following:
0-) O-) o-)Running off at the mouth again, we see that pleasant results may come from lower & Upper case "J", but I can be very perplexing (depending upon the font):
:-J :-j :-I :-iA number of strange mouths arise from certain digits, and various other letters:
:-1 :-2 :-3 :-4 :-7 :-l :-lSome letters don't quite make it. By squinting, and stretching your imagination, you might get the following (depending on font) to give hints of braces, a scuba mask, and talking out of the side of one's mouth.
:-H :-G :-U :-u :-V :-vSadly, we see the corners of the mouth turn down with the letter "C":
:-C :-cThe same letter, however might make nice (but silly) syelims:
C-: c-:
.