Article: Emoticons evoke emotions in e-mails.(Life-Today)

Byline: BILL DAWSON Minneapolis Star-Tribune

There's something about the :) that brings out the : in people.

Shannon Worden of Pequot Lakes, Minn., calls emoticons, those sideways punctuation faces used in e-mail and text messages, "an emotional firestorm of smiles and frowns and little wiggly grins."

Angus Trumble is tougher. "To be perfectly honest, I would rather die than add a little smiley face to a message," said Trumble, author of "A Brief History of the Smile."

And Penn Jillette - the vocal half of comic magicians Penn and Teller - wrote that emoticons are "used by people who would dot their i's with little circles and should ...

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