Roughly about the same time my husband forwarded me the article Emoticons Move to the Business World, featured in the New York Times, I asked a Korean high school student to teach me some emoticons, Korean style.

Since my husband and his colleagues (one of them had forwarded the article to him) are members of the English department, it is somewhat obvious they’d approve of real words to show emotion.

At the same time, maybe by coincidence, none of them are on facebook or twitter. My husband’s argument against social media is that he does not have time for it. He might, if he only wrote some emoticons along with his words. Darn, I almost used one now.

The article itself was very good to read. And yes, I do refrain from using emoticons in business e-mails. In business, using them is stepping too close to the subject, more like slapping your business partner on his back.

But when on social media, it becomes a necessary tool. At times, I might only have a minute to comment on somebody’s post and the emoticon saves me a lot of time from trying to explain I was only (trying to be) witty. See, these three words could have been substituted by one simple sign.

In real life, we can use our facial features to transcend the mood of the speaker. In social media, with so many non-native speakers around in the global network, we want to make doubly sure we are understood. And what better way than to accentuate it with a smiley face.

I had fun learning these Korean emoticons today and want to share them with you. Frankly, I can’t wait to add one of them to a post on facebook this evening.

^^ = happy

T.T = sad

-_- = annoyed

-_-;; = embarrassed

>< = totally excited

:S = confused