Smiley confusion!

[DJKillaQueen]

My favourite smiley has always been >:D< because I thought it was a michievious thumbs up. But oh the horror when today I found out what it really means. Certainly explains a few things! :-$

[felt-tip]

what does it mean?

[RosieH]

What does it mean? I always thought it was someone sticking their middle fingers up (is that "flipping the bird"?) and laughing. Is it not that? Is it rude? Man, I'm so not down with the kids.

[DulwichFox]

Roll over the smiley. You should see a 'Tool Tip' with the name of the Smiley.

[RosieH]

Yeah, giving someone the finger (as opposed to, you know, fingering them). That's what I thought. Not that bad is it?

[DulwichFox]

Google it.

It's not polite.

[DJKillaQueen]

Exactly... a mischievious thumbs up is fun....giving the bird can upset lol............like I said...so many things suddenly make sense lol.

[RosieH]

DulwichFox Wrote:

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> Google it.

>

> It's not polite.

I know what it means, I'm not a moron. It's the equivalent of sticking two fingers up at someone. But a lot of us do that in good humour, no? I saw a very nice picture of that very handsome George Clooney doing it only the other day.

[DJKillaQueen]

Not George!!! What is the world coming too?

[DulwichFox]

RosieH Wrote:

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> DulwichFox Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Google it.

> >

> > It's not polite.

>

>

> I know what it means, I'm not a moron. It's the

> equivalent of sticking two fingers up at someone.

> But a lot of us do that in good humour, no? I saw

> a very nice picture of that very handsome George

> Clooney doing it only the other day.

Well why did you ask what it meant in your first post. ??

[matthew123]

Well also take into consideration the context, for instance a simple smile smiley after a snide remark can be worst of the lot!

[RosieH]

DulwichFox Wrote:

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> Well why did you ask what it meant in your first

> post. ??

I believe I said,

I always thought it was someone sticking their middle fingers up (is that "flipping the bird"?) and laughing. Is it not that?

Which it transpires is what it does mean. You told me to google the meaning of giving someone the finger, not the meaning of said smiley.

Like most people over the age of 5, I know what giving someone the finger means.

[pk]

DJKillaQueen Wrote:

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> My favourite smiley has always been >:D thought it was a michievious thumbs up. But oh the

> horror when today I found out what it really

> means. Certainly explains a few things! :-$

it might look like 'the finger' and be called 'the finger' but when i suggested in the past that it was 'the finger' people such as smg told me it wasn't 'the finger' here

http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?20,160299,160307#msg-160307

[RosieH]

How has anyone ever thought it was anything but the finger? My eyesight isn't great, but I can see the "thumbs" at the side of the "hands". And the colour red suggests anger, no? And the head bobbing like some kind of Wayne's World retard..? It's clearly the finger.

I was only confused at the beginning of the thread, because it is so painfully obvious that it's the finger, that if there was some confusion as to what it actually meant, then clearly it was something rather subtle and subliminal and completely different to the very obvious pair of fingers held aloft.

However, perhaps I've never been offended by it because I have the mouth of a fishwife.

Anyway, on this, as on all things, I concur with *Bob* - if you'd care to read his point on use of punctuation faces on the resurrected thread.

[RosieH]

pk Wrote:

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> it might look like 'the finger' and be called 'the

> finger' but when i suggested in the past that it

> was 'the finger' people such as smg told me it

> wasn't 'the finger' here

>

> http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?2

> 0,160299,160307#msg-160307

pk, don't let this alarm you, or switch irrevocably your world view to dystopian, but it has on very rare occasion been known for smg to be wrong. You, on the other hand, were emphatically right.

[SeanMacGabhann]

It's true. I did, just shy of 3 years ago, labour under a misapprehension. That original thread showed me the light. I learned from my mistakes. And despite disagreeing with pk again just recently, they remain a poster I always read with interest

Looking at the emoticon again it seems downright weird I could have confused them for a jolly thumbs up. Anyway, enough.... Back to me being right, now

[Huguenot]

I wonder what the keyboard version is?

I've tried googling it, but all I end up with is spam sites - so emoticons are clearly big draws for web criminals.

There's lots of ways to design a finger smiley, but it doesn't actually change into finger smiley automatically on the forum.

In the same way that winkey is... ; ) finger smiley is... ??

Bueller.... Bueller... Anyone?

[binary_star]

Huguenot Wrote:

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> I wonder what the keyboard version is?

> : D <

without the spaces.

[HonaloochieB]

I don't think the 'giving the fingers' emoticon is any more or less offensive than any other one of the b@starding things.

[RosieH]

What Hona said.

Or indeed any more offensive than saying something deliberately snide or condescending and then adding a winky face, like, "Who, little ole me? I'm just being cute."

[felt-tip]

I thought it was a thumbs-up like DJKQ but on closer inspection I realise it is actually 'flipping the bird'.

[DJKillaQueen]

What Rosie said too.

[Ramble66]

OMG! I always thought it was thumbs up too! On zoom it's definitely the finger!

[DJKillaQueen]

See.....I knew I wasn't the only one lol.

[ianr]

binary_star Wrote:

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> Huguenot Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > I wonder what the keyboard version is?

>

> > : D

> without the spaces.

In the Phorum file smileyslib.php, which contains the default set of smileys in the package, that is given as the text version of "smiley14.gif the finger smiley."