Disable emoticons on your wordpress.com blog
Problem
WordPress.com converts emoticons (like “:o”) to small graphics. After a while they become annoying, at least for me. How to get rid of them?
Solution
Go to the admin panel, visit Settings -> Writing, and untick “Convert emoticons like :-) and :-P to graphics on display”. Then Save Changes.
Credits
I found this tip here.
The simplicity using icons to express sensations might not be as unnecessary as people suppose .