/ee-moh' ti-kon/ An
ASCII glyph used to indicate an emotional state in
electronic mail or
news. Although originally intended mostly as jokes, emoticons (or some other explicit humour indication) are v
IRtually requ
IRed under certain c
IRcumstances in high-volume text-only communication forums such as
Usenet the lack of verbal and visual cues can otherwise cause what were intended to be humorous, sarcastic,
IRonic, or otherwise non-100%-serious comments to be badly misinterpreted (not always even by
newbies), resulting in arguments and
flame wars. Hundreds of emoticons have been proposed, but only a few are in common use. These include: :-) "smiley face" (for humour, laughter, friendliness, occasionally sarcasm) :-( "frowney face" (for sadness, anger, or upset) -) "half-smiley" (ha ha only serious) also known as "semi-smiley" or "winkey face". :-/ "wry face" These may become more comprehensible if you tilt your head sideways, to the left. The f
IRst two are by far the most frequently encountered. Hyphenless forms of them are common on
CompuServe,
GEnie, and
BIX see also
bixie. On
Usenet, "smiley" is often used as a generic term synonymous with emoticon, as well as specifically for the happy-face emoticon. It appears that the emoticon was invented by one Scott Fahlman on the
CMU bboard systems around 1980. He later wrote: "I wish I had saved the original post, or at least recorded the date for posterity, but I had no idea that I was starting something that would soon pollute all the world' s communication channels." [
GLS conf
IRms that he remembers this original posting]. As with exclamation marks, overuse of the smiley is a mark of loserhood! More than one per paragraph is a fa
IRly sure sign that you' ve gone over the line. [
Jargon File] (1994-12-02)
In addition suitable contents:
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