Basic Emoticons

[ysabetwordsmith]

There are emoticons for all kinds of feelings and other situations.  It occurred to me that, as people spend more time communicating through text media, part of what's driving the emoticon boom is a need to express at least the basic emotions.  So that got me wondering if there are, in fact, emoticons for all of those.  Learn them and you have the primary colors of the human heart.

1) Anger
>:(   
>_<

2) Fear
O_O 
<8-O

3) Disgust
:P
>:p

4) Contempt
:/
:S
0_o

5) Joy
:)
:D
^_^

6) Sadness
:(
:'(

7) Surprise
:O
8-0

Comments

[fyreharper]

Ditto most of this. I do use :-/ sometimes - as I commented above, most of my emoticon use corresponds to what my face is doing (or would be doing if visible), so :-/ is the face that kind of feels like one side of my mouth goes up and the other goes down? It is definitely not contempt. The verbal version of one possible use-scenario might approximate 'that sucks for you and that makes me sad', but there are other uses also.

I've never been entirely certain how to read :S