Part of the nature of a good one-on-one conversation is the use of visual cues. How important are facial expressions and body gestures to a conversation? A simple eye movement can mean the difference between "yes" and "YES". What about auditory cues? The results are the same.

Since there are no visual or auditory cues with e-mail, users have come up with something called "smilies". They are simple strings of characters that are interspersed in the e-mail text to convey the writer's emotions (cues). The most common example is :-). Turn your head to the left and you should see a happy face (the colon are the eyes, the dash is the nose and the parentheses is the mouth). Here are some more examples.

 

This	Means This
:-)	Smiley face
;-)	Wink (light sarcasm)
:-|	Indifference
:->	Devilish grin (heavy sarcasm)
8-)	Eye-glasses
:-D	Shock or surprise
:-/	Perplexed
:-(	Frown (anger or displeasure)
:-P	Wry smile
;-}	Leer
:-Q	Smoker
:-e	Disappointment
:-@	Scream
:-O	Yell
:-*	Drunk
:-{}	Wears lipstick