Emoticons

Question

Can any one explain, the logic behind emoticons, we see in yahoo messenger for example :-) represents a happy etc. My problem in particular is 1. To show a tick mark within a string. is it possible I could generate a Tick mark using a Wingdings font, but I want to have both text and special characters like "TICK", "CROSS", etc (if possible in a dfferent colour) please reply if anyone has an idea Regards Saduneni