E-mail Communications sent by e-mail and other internet conventions have attracted their own etiquette – ‘netiquette’ – differing from that of letters sent by snail mail and in many ways closer to that of a telephone call. It is bad form to ‘shout’, i.e. use capital letters unnecessarily, irony or sarcasm is frowned upon and gossip risks being forwarded to the wrong person. To aid those in the know, and to confuse those who are not, there is also a vocabulary of ‘emoticons’ (see smiley face): the characters and symbols of the keyboard used in such combinations as to convey emotions of pleasure, astonishment, etc., and which often replace the standard signing-off phrases of regular letters. – Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable