OMG, LOL, Smiley turns 26… :-)
Our old friend, Smiley the emoticon was born 26 years ago today. Personally, I think the world is a better place for it - but only the plain and simple text based variety, not the crazy, ridiculous animated ones that MSN tries to peddle.
The birth, as it occurred all those years ago:
1982: At precisely 11:44 a.m., Scott Fahlman posts the following electronic message to a computer-science department bulletin board at Carnegie Mellon University:
19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman :-)
From: Scott E FahlmanI propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:
:-)
Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use:
:-(
Full story at Wired.
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OMG ! I didn’t know smiley was 26. It is such a simple lovely 3 characters that adds a dash of personal touch to our writing. It sure made my communication better. I use the 2 character version more often :).