Yeah, I interpret that one as a sarcastic playing of "the world's tiniest violin."

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}- Mark -{ ASPARAGUS Asparagus in a lean in a lean to hot. This makes it art and it is wet wet weather wet weather wet. —Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons

It is a rather small violin. I also use it in that manner.

OK, that makes 5 of us Americans who interpret this guy as playing the world's smallest violin which further represents to us that somebody is complaining or whining.

So the question remains--what does mean to non-Americans? And now that you know how we Americans interpret that symbol, for those of you who have inserted it into a post, do you think it conveyed the meaning you had in mind?

For sarcastic reply to a people who want sympathy. But, I have never seen this on this site.

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I am carrying my heart~I am carrying my rhythm~I am carrying my prayers~But you can't kill my spirit~It's soaring and strong (Paula Cole's Me Lyrics)***We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We ARE spirtual beings having a human experience.(T.deChardin)***There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. (Albert Einstein)

Here's a thing - in 10+ months, not one person from outside the US has answered!
GG, as the OP, are you feeling neglected?

GG wrote: Oh DD, alas, someone has noticed the pain and suffering that has been inflicted upon me by this gross neglect of my question. I'm afraid it has put me in such a state that words fail me, and I can only express myself by inserting one of these:
Shall I invite you to my pity party, DD?

In all seriousness, I have reached the point where I just ignore the poor little violin player playing his very small violin. With no explanations forthcoming from the folks who inevitably use this icon the most, it carries almost no meaning for me.

DD replies: Ok, I'll bring my violin. Will your toaster have arrived by then?

They say we have to take the good with the bad. Of course, there is a limit. As a wise old man once told the freezing Eskimo (please pardon my lack of political-correctness) who lit a warm fire in his canoe, "You can't have your kayak and heat it too."

I always thought that the violin was of standard size - it's the yellow head that's too big.

grammargeek Posted: Thursday, May 20, 2010 1:54:20 PM
Given how much I love groaner jokes, you have just earned yourself an invitation to my pity party. Now I'm starting to think I might need to drive my toaster to the airport to pick up my party guests. Oh, BTW, no "big heads" allowed.


26letters writes: Oh thank you, GG. I love the idea of a party with no sax or violins.

As a non American but still an English speaker I've thought the smiley indicated unsympathetic irony/sarcasm. If someone is constantly complaining they are ill to get sympathy, then the hand gesture of playing the violin is a sort of 'Oh G.d he's not going on about illness again' usually made to a third person without the complainer seeing the gesture. If he is sees the gesture then he should take the hint and shut up.

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Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric. - Bertrand Russell

Obviously I am not a NON native speaker but any thread DD has chosen to revive from the grave and discusses toasters deserves input (seriously DD what do you do troll last years posts to see which ones to revive? )

oh poor you, said in a drippingly sarcastic voice.

xxxxxxxxRA

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Truly great madness can not be achieved without significant intelligence, Henrik Tikkanen

I typically see the smiley as the proto-guitar shredder, the violinist virtuoso.

In reality, I always thought of it as "the world's smallest violin," basically the whole pity party thing. I mean, look at his face, it looks like he's so sad. I just checked, and the image is even called "boohoo.gif." Definitely intended for the use we understand it to be.

I'm curious as to what meaning the non-native English speakers associate with the smiley, because there have been a whole lot of times I've seen it and just completely been lost as to why it's there.

Oh excellent! I was trying to figure out a way to say this and here you did it for me. Thanks.

Yes, thank you, uuaschbaer. I have no idea what country you live in or what your first language is, but from the way you answered, I'm going to assume that you are not a native English-speaker. Am I right about that? The explanation you gave of how you use that particular Smiley does seem reasonable as an extension of the narrower boo hoo/pity party usage.

I keep waiting for somebody to come along and say something totally different. Since they haven't (yet), maybe I'm way off-base with what I am going to say next; I just don't know. Anyway, there have been multiple times that I have seen the violin-playing Smiley placed next to a question, invariably from a non-native speaker, usually in the original post beginning a topic. On those occasions, none of the above explanations fits.

When I try to think outside the "Smiley box" about what the OP's intended meaning might be, I usually come up with something along the lines of it being an indication of that person trying to harmoniously fit in with the rest of the forum members, especially if that person's English is a little (or a lot) awkward due to being very much still in the learning phase. To take that idea a step further, maybe it's being used as a general indication of something nice and agreeable such as soft background music would be. Or maybe it's a visual representation of being polite and saying please or even "Please be nice to me in the way you answer my question." Does that make sense to anyone else?

You're welcome, RuthP.

nooblet, if people indeed do use the phrase or the associated gesture or the entire act by combining both the phrase and the gesture to indicate that they are being overdramatic then you're right, it does mean that. I wasn't aware of the fact that people do that therefore my experience of how the smiley was used transgressed the borders of how the whole world's-smallest-violin thing was used according to my experience, but it did not transgress the borders of the way that that world's-smallest-violin thing is used in your experience. That means we can agree on how the smiley is used, like the world's-smallest-violin thing in your experience.

grammargeek, you're welcome as well and you're quite right about my non-nativeness. Something in particular that gave it away? Perhaps the fact that I used the word "to" where I should've written "too" (it's midnight over here), or was it my way of employing the violinist smiley after all? It would be a remarkable phenomenon if it were indeed possible to derive such information from something so trivial.
Your crippled-communication-compensation hypothesis seems very plausible to me. People are new here, don't speak the language well (on a dictionary forum, nota bene), ask unknown people for a favour and to convey their goodwill they seek to add a universally understood smiley, as they can't find a smiley that actually smiles (well , we have but it seems a bit sarcastic) they settle for the one that is almost entirely neutral when used out of context but still slightly more human than no smiley at all.

Edit: Thought it might be prudent to put the names in bold. It isn't meant to look stern or like yelling.

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The opposite of hatred is love; the opposite of tyranny is love; the opposite of censorship is love; the opposite of evil is love; the opposite of politics is love; the opposite of war is love; the opposite of god is love.–– Salman Rushdie
Broadly speaking, it is held that getting money is good and spending money is bad. Seeing that they are two sides of one transaction, this is absurd; one might as well maintain that keys are good, but keyholes are bad. Whatever merit there may be in the production of goods must be entirely derivative from the advantage to be obtained by consuming them. –Bertrand Russell
Never believe a liar. Papa, angry people burn our home.

Oh oh, I have a different interpretation!
As a non-native English speaker I was not familiar with the world's smallest violin interpretation and therefore my first thought was someone waxing poetic.
Admittedly, the two can coincide, but it can also be used in a non-pitying manner such as:

His eyes sparkled like diamonds in the midnight sky, blinding her with their intensity, yet she found herself unable to look away.

As for a non-romantic example, hmmm...

She always wore a penchant her mother gave when she was but a young girl. It was her pillar of strength and whenever she was torn with doubt, she closed her palm around it, holding it close to her. Instantly, she found an answer to her question.

Hmm, now that I think of it, this is practically identical to being overly dramatic. I suppose I could tone it down a bit but then, poetry is about emotions.

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Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. --Robert Frost: The Road Not Taken--

I've always been attracted to psychiatry/psychology (I know they are different offspring coming from the same womb), will be studying the subject next semester. Couldn't you deduce my Non-nativity, GG? LOL

This is something I said in another thread:
After spending two days in NY, the first person to speak to me in English was the postwoman. The postwoman said "Hi" and I had no freaking clue of what she had just said; that's how much English I knew by the time. I've lived in the U.S. [New York] for approximately 6 years, I was 15 when I came, but I'm still not able to pronounce a single word right in English. I sure can read and write in English, but I can't speak it fluently. Part of the problem is because I don't have friends that are native speakers, hence I only talk/communicate with Spanish speakers. Lately, the movies and TV shows I watch are restricted to English only. I'm also trying to speak as much English as I can on my computer class program.

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Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet. - Plato

Actually, RARA, the toaster was incidental. I was interested to learn from GG how she's reacting to being neglected. But, to be fair, I think she's coping very well. She even invited me to her party, and - by happy cooincidence - I will have the chance to inspect her toaster, wherever she's keeping it. Are you invited? If so, bring yours with you; I'd love to see it.
Yes, I did.