/ee-moh' ti-kon/ An
ASCII glyph used to indi
Cate an emotional state in
eleCtroniC mail or
news. Although originally intended mostly as jokes, emoti
Cons (or some other expli
Cit humour indi
Cation) are virtually required under
Certain
Cir
Cumstan
Ces in high-volume text-only
Communi
Cation forums su
Ch as
Usenet the la
Ck of verbal and visual
Cues
Can otherwise
Cause what were intended to be humorous, sar
Casti
C, ironi
C, or otherwise non-100%-serious
Comments to be badly misinterpreted (not always even by
newbies), resulting in arguments and
flame wars. Hundreds of emoti
Cons have been proposed, but only a few are in
Common use. These in
Clude: :-) "smiley fa
Ce" (for humour, laughter, friendliness, o
CCasionally sar
Casm) :-( "frowney fa
Ce" (for sadness, anger, or upset) -) "half-smiley" (ha ha only serious) also known as "semi-smiley" or "winkey fa
Ce". :-/ "wry fa
Ce" These may be
Come more
Comprehensible if you tilt your head sideways, to the left. The first two are by far the most frequently en
Countered. Hyphenless forms of them are
Common on
CompuServe,
GEnie, and
BIX see also
bixie. On
Usenet, "smiley" is often used as a generi
C term synonymous with emoti
Con, as well as spe
Cifi
Cally for the happy-fa
Ce emoti
Con. It appears that the emoti
Con was invented by one S
Cott Fahlman on the
CMU bboard systems around 1980. He later wrote: "I wish I had saved the original post, or at least re
Corded the date for posterity, but I had no idea that I was starting something that would soon pollute all the world' s
Communi
Cation
Channels." [
GLS Confirms that he remembers this original posting]. As with ex
Clamation marks, overuse of the smiley is a mark of loserhood! More than one per paragraph is a fairly sure sign that you' ve gone over the line. [
Jargon File] (1994-12-02)
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