:-) Smileys

The following is from the NetLingo site:-

A smiley is a sequence of characters on your computer keyboard. If you don't see it, try tilting your head to the left -- the colon represents the eyes, the dash represents the nose and the right parenthesis represents the mouth. Smileys usually follow after the punctuation (or in place of the punctuation) at the end of a sentence. A smiley tells someone what you really mean when you make an offhand remark. They are also called emoticons because they intend to convey emotion!

A new generation of smileys has appeared on the scene and NetLingo is fast trying to track them down. We consider these "straight-on smileys" as another form of ASCII ART: those in which you do not tilt your head but rather look at it straight on, such as @(*0*)@ for a koala. A new section is coming soon!

And, lest you think that's all, there are also now assicons and boobiecons... emoticons which highlight other parts of the body! NetLingo has an ever-growing list of smileys...enjoy! :-)

http://www.netlingo.com/smiley.cfm