Wonderful post on the terminology of numeral and punctuation typography:
In “Emoticons During Wartime,” a recent article in The New Yorker (December 10, 2007), Tom McNichol documents the usefulness of emoticons in communicating by visual innuendo. Emoticons can mean whatever the writer and reader want them to mean, until, of course the meaning is explicitly defined for all by The New Yorker. Two striking examples are:
“=|:-)= This e‑mail is being monitored by Uncle Sam for your protection,” and “:-x I’d rather not say in an e‑mail that’s being monitored for my protection.”