Emoticon
Emoticons are clusters of punctuation such as : ) and : > that are used to convey emotions. They are representations of smiley faces. The knack to interpreting them is to tilt your head sideways to the left and look for a facial expression. They're useful in chat, email and on message boards because they convey emotions and add sign-posts to messages that could be open to misinterpretation. (Also see Flaming)