An emoticon ( or ), etymologically a portmanteau of emotion and icon, is a metacommunicative pictorial representation of a facial expression that, in the absence of body language and prosody, serves to draw a receiver's attention to the tenor or temper of a sender's nominal non-verbal communication, changing and improving its interpretation. It expresses — usually by means of punctuation marks (though it can include numbers and letters) — a person's feelings or mood, though as emoticons have become more popular, some devices have provided stylized pictures that do not use punctuation.