[HN Gopher] Smiley Lore :-) (2002)
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       Smiley Lore :-) (2002)
        
       Author : geox
       Score  : 45 points
       Date   : 2021-12-09 12:06 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.cs.cmu.edu)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.cs.cmu.edu)
        
       | Zababa wrote:
       | > Various "joke markers" were suggested, and in the midst of that
       | discussion it occurred to me that the character sequence :-)
       | would be an elegant solution - one that could be handled by the
       | ASCII-based computer terminals of the day. So I suggested that.
       | In the same post, I also suggested the use of :-( to indicate
       | that a message was meant to be taken seriously, though that
       | symbol quickly evolved into a marker for displeasure,
       | frustration, or anger.
       | 
       | Fortunately, in ASCII we have a neutral spot between ( and ). I
       | present to you the neutral marker: :-|
        
       | trentgreene wrote:
       | IIRC, Wittgenstein describes the usage of type to create a smile
       | face in one of his writings and provides an example (I want to
       | say I saw this in Culture and Value, a collection released in
       | 1970). He died in 1951.
       | 
       | This is of course, not to throw shade on the authors claim to
       | original invention. I believe that without doubt :)
        
         | andai wrote:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoticon#Precursors
         | 
         | > Modern emoticons were not the first instances of :) or :-)
         | being used in text.
         | 
         | > In 1648, poet Robert Herrick wrote the lines:
         | Tumble me down, and I will sit         Upon my ruins, (smiling
         | yet:)
        
           | trentgreene wrote:
           | Dope! That is... older than I expected
        
       | mordechai9000 wrote:
       | > Shakespeare's work is full of cliches and his spelling was
       | atrocious. :-)
       | 
       | How could you not be aware that spelling was not standardized at
       | the time? Does this person know nothing about the history of the
       | English language?
       | 
       | /s and :) should be obvious here, but I am including them anyway,
       | just to be safe. I don't want to be accused of old fashioned
       | trolling, and starting a flame war.
        
         | wolfhumble wrote:
         | > /s and :) should be obvious here, but I am including them
         | anyway, just to be safe. I don't want to be accused of old
         | fashioned trolling, and starting a flame war.
         | 
         | If so you should be denoting it with the appropriate ~= sign:
         | 
         | "~= a candle, to annotate flaming messages"
         | 
         | :-)
        
           | ravi-delia wrote:
           | I'm not sure if we should be encouraging all this candle
           | talk, wouldn't want to ruin another elevator.
        
       | beamatronic wrote:
       | :-)
        
         | kingcharles wrote:
         | ROFL
        
       | macrolocal wrote:
       | Adjacently, this is fun:
       | 
       | https://github.com/mcdwayne/CIA-Emoji-WP-Plugin/blob/master/...
       | 
       | _
        
         | omneity wrote:
         | Did you know windows has a shortcut for these? Win + . then
         | select the second tab (first is for emojis).
         | 
         | Seemingly called Kaomojis.
         | 
         | My personal favorite (with a special background of its own,
         | never thought of dropping it in HN some day):
         | 
         | tth_tth
        
       | hereforphone wrote:
       | When I first got online we did this to smile: <G>
        
       | at_a_remove wrote:
       | At one point, new-on-the-scene O'Reilly Books put out a very
       | small book of "smileys," including buttons. I want to say 1992 or
       | 1993. I wonder if I still have it.
        
         | kingcharles wrote:
         | In the early-to-mid 90s there were hundreds of emoticon +
         | acronym books. They were marketed as essential reading for
         | anyone joining the Internet.
         | 
         | They might be collector's items now. The sort of thing you
         | would find in the window of the Blast From The Past store.
         | 
         | https://backtothefuture.fandom.com/wiki/Blast_from_the_Past
        
       | davesque wrote:
       | I actually have a vague memory of the first time I realized that
       | the couple of characters that were appearing before me on the
       | screen were meant to represent a smiley face turned sideways. It
       | was some time in the mid 90s in Boulder, CO. Boulder Valley
       | School District had a program for students to request an account
       | on a System V server that was being hosted up at the University
       | of Colorado campus in the engineering center. A bunch of us had
       | gotten accounts and were exchanging emails with the pine email
       | client. A friend sent me an email that included ":)". Since I was
       | using a terminal program to view emails, I had grown accustomed
       | to seeing various control or syntax characters being printed out
       | for different reasons. I assumed what I was seeing was something
       | like that. Perhaps a control character that was meant to control
       | bold font being accidentally printed out. Eventually, I realized
       | it was a smiley face.
        
         | anyfoo wrote:
         | My recollection is even more vague, but I think it was when
         | trying out early versions of Linux and browsing the
         | documentation. I, too, probably had a fleeting thought of
         | "weird control characters, must be a UNIX thing", before it
         | finally hit me. I don't remember when and where exactly, but I
         | do remember the sudden realization.
        
       | kingcharles wrote:
       | > It's interesting to note that Microsoft and AOL now intercept
       | these character strings and turn them into little pictures.
       | 
       | "Little pictures".
       | 
       | Who knew this is how it would end?
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emoji_Movie
       | 
       | > Patrick Stewart as Poop
        
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