How do you end parenthetical statements with emoticons?

Seriously, though. Speaking from a grammatical standpoint, how can you correctly end a parenthetical statement with an emoticon?

I've run into a situation like this so many times, I NEED a solution.

To this day, I just hope that PHP automatically inserts the correct smiley for me, then closes the statement (Like this ) but this can be a problem depending on what symbol you use for eyes.

PHP won't insert an emoticon if you use an exclamation mark for the eyes. While this doesn't sound like a big deal (why not just switch to using a colon?) it is for the people who, like me, do use an exclamation mark.

So, for those of us who don't conform to the pretty yellow circles to the right of your Reply box, give me a solution!

 

(Hi )

 

Hi

 

Right, but both of those only work if you use colons to create emoticons. In fact, there is no true issue here so long as you're using a bulletin board that uses PHP (and face it, there isn't a bulletin board that DOESN'T use PHP.)

What about in an IRC? What about in a chat environment where emoticons do not exist and are based purely off of symbols?

 

I usually go for the )) over just one ). Using one makes me think that you forgot one or that you never ended the parenthetical statement.

 

i simply use these.

=]


=[

for example like this fake dialog

me: hai everyone =]
guest 1:hello how is your day
me: it's pretty fucking epic
guest2:same here i just fuckin nuke
me:=o really nice!!

 

(or BSD )

 

If you did that, you should probably do it for both sides. ( or BSD )

 

Yeah, that's what I do mostly too.