!

! - when placed in front of a sentence, makes that sentence a sarcastic remark. This pre-emoticon arose out of a need to clarify the concept of sarcasm in statements on the internet that previously could not be expressed with only plain text. It provides exclamation in front of the sentence as a precursor to the tone of the sentence to come. Origin: It comes from the programmers language meaning NOT - the opposite of what its modifying. Example: You and your friend are playing horse. You make a difficult shot and your friend says, "What an easy shot." He shoots and misses. You say, "Man, you made that shot no problem." The fact that you are given background story makes it easy to spot the sarcasm, but this is not always the case on the internet. To make that last comment sarcastic in a situation where there is no background you would simply use: