... example of an emoticon is this ":)". Generally, this emoticon means that the person using it is happy, or smiling. There are many other alternatives ":(, =P , =D , =I , :o)". By looking at them from a side view you can see that they appear to be faces. These emoticons are used everyday by many different people and so are creeping into the language. Are we slowly weaning ourselves off words and using alternatives, such as emoticons, to communicate? Will we, in the future, communicate using a modern form of hieroglyphics? Language change is always happening and new words are always being introduced to the language, words being added mainly start off as slang but then work their way into the language and are recognisable by a very large variety of people. Words such as "Diss" and "minger", are used by a lot of people aged 12 - 18, ...

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