Group
-
A free expression in brackets
The problem of current emoticons is that we can't express all our feelings only by face expressions, let alone by ascii arts of face. Moreover, the most people, who aren't artists, use only 3 to 6 most popular ones. The extensibility shouldn't be restricted to the combination of emoticon signs, but any new element should also be usable easily (without having to look for an appropriate letter). So, I propose a new possibility to express your feelings freely. The only rule is to put everything between [:- and :]. Things you could put there include
- mouth ascii arts such as ), D, S, (, }, |, /, &, P, O, X, *, ] (it's not the end of the emotion, because the end is ":]") ...
- a complete emoticon such as X-|, 8-O, )-; ...
- any other ascii art such as @- (a flower: thanks!), ~(9: (a mouse: weak?) ...
- any symbolic letter such as $, !, ? ...
- onomatopoeia and interjection such as "zzz", "bang", "uh", "gosh", "hey" ...
- or simply "lost", "glad", "mad", "dull" (or in your own language, of course!) ...
An example:
Last sunday, I was walking in the city to go to the doctor's. I had cavity [:-(S X-| !:]. Then, suddenly, I found something in my pocket, which I didn't remember [:- !? wow:]. If you want to know what it was, please ask me two weeks later, because I'm still about to find it out [:-P sorry...:].
Doesn't it look pretty easy and flexible?
-
Extended emoticons?
Normally, an emoticon consists of eyes (":", ";", "8" etc.), a nose ("-") and a mouth (")", "D", "(" etc.). As you, however, can't really decide for an emoticon, but want to express an emotion precisely. Anyway, simply combining several emoticons can be confusing:
Wow! I didn't know the pleasant fact until now! Thanks a lot. :-D:-D:-);-):-o:-o
Since several emoticons are commonly interpreted as addition (stronger emotion), mixing emotions should be done in this way:
Oh, sorry for forgetting your birthday! I really hope you a jolly party. [8;-soooDDD]
Ok, perhaps you think, it's not a face anymore! Yes, I admit, but it's still funny (or even more than an ordinary emoticon) and it's in no way difficult to understand. The difference to a conventional emoticon is that you have to read it character for character rather than see a single picture.
-
How should it become?
In my opinion, expressing your feelings should be fun and easy. This is also the aim of this project. The nomenclature shouldn't become something similar to the chemical nomenclature (such as 2,3-dimetyl-5-propyl-non-7-enol) but a simple and extensible scheme. However, ":-(----------" or ":-(*10^-100" wouldn't fit for expressing a really slight anger, because you see the emoticon of being angry, which can only be written by a quite angry person (at least the addressee thinks that you're quite angry in the reality). It's the same thing as you instantly think of a dog, when someone says, there isn't any dog. Every feeling should be unique and not categorized into a black-and-white scheme. It would be quite good, if we define a set of three parameters similar to colors (red, green and blue) and rate the feeling with a number between 0 and 255. The set could consist of excitement, sureness and satisfaction. So, "sad" could be (20, 20, 20) (quite depressed?) or (230, 100, 0) (someone is sure that it's a miserable situation) and "happy" could be (255, 255, 255) (nothing to worry about!) or (20, 100, 220) (someone objectively assesses something simply working).
However, this isn't what I mean. These numbers are nothing funny or easy. Please submit your ideas for doing this in a better way!
-
Why do you need it?
Well, I thought it could be quite useful or perhaps more fun than useful, if we had a simple way to express our emotions exactly and in a simple and short and instantly understandable word. Sure, we've got numerous simple words for emotions already: from jolly, happy, fine, fickle, dull, sad, surly, ill to mad. (You miss something important? Nothing is prohibited to comment here (except vandalism, spam, virus, assault and anything illegal)!) However, are you really satisfied with them? Do really everyone understand the expressions in the same way? My very personal opinion is: not really. If you disagree (i.e. agree with the previous questions or have got a completely different opinion), then please comment! I think that emoticons and smileys are quite a good way to express your feeling exactly, since the most people can understand other peoples' facial expression. However, they are limited (the most popular ones are
- :-)
- ;-)
- :-|
- :-/
- :-(
- :-P
- :-D
- :-O
) and therefore not suited to express a "verrrry happy" emotion. Sometimes, people repeat a smiley to increase the degree of their emotion. However, how do you decrease it? Perhaps you also wanted sometimes express a slight anger, but since you don't want the addresse to missunderstand it and become really furious about your comment, you had no choice but to say you were happy? As it is too usual to understate your anger (in order to be polite), most people don't understand any "slight" anger toward them anymore. Any negative comment from you will be interpreted as a tyrannical rage.
How would you react to this comment to your recent blog posting?:
Your post is really informative, for which I can't find anything comparable on the whole Internet. However, I don't really agree completely with your statement that we should check your blog everyday instead of reading newspapers, since I need both of them for different purposes. In the newspaper, I find political stories, in which I'm equally interested as in the technical updates you write about.
-- 10.01.1001 10:01 by quite-polite-anonymous-commenter
Although this person clearly praises your blog as a whole, you can only imagine a person thinking you were silly. So, we'd like to create a new "nomenclature" to express such feelings unmistakably.
-
What's it about?
With this project, I'm trying to create a (not bureaucratic) universal nomenclature for emotions! How should it work? Am I trying to make everything to make up yet another cold academic formula and bunch of laws out of the humanistic values? No, this project should be something you can enjoy participating! Only a project done by people can reach people. So, I don't define anything further. Please contribute in any way you like! Noovo is a quite good service with simple "terms and conditions" so that it's the right place here, I believe.
