Smile(y), it’s your birthday!
Wednesday, September 19th by carlaToday is the birthday of an icon. Literally.
is 25 years old today, according to Professor Scott E. Fahlman of Carnegie Mellon University. He proposed using a colon, hypen, and right parenthesis to suggest a smile in 1982. His post proved to be the first of a series of keystroke sets now known as emoticons or “smilies.” In 1982, of course, everything online was text-based, and people had to learn to attach an agreed-upon meaning to the unorthodox punctuation. 
Smiley has not grown up as an only child. In the same post Fahlman also created :-(, the frownie. Others followed:
— the very big grin
— winking
- :-p — sticking tongue out
- B-) — the person is wearing glasses
- :-X — “My lips are sealed.”
(Today’s browsers render the most common text smilies in graphic form.)
Because tone is often difficult to determine in text, smilies serve a useful purpose in conveying meaning in chat rooms and e-mail. Teachers would like to think that we teach our students to write so that their words convey their tone, and in formal writing, it must. In informal writing, however, smilies are part of code switching, identifying newbies and outsiders. (Don’t we all remember the moment someone said, “Turn your head to the left”? We were strangers no more.) As text in a busy chat room flies up the screen, we don’t have time to analyze a statement thoughtfully. A well placed smiley prevents misunderstandings and subsequent flames. Smilies might be called the diplomats of the Web.
Happy birthday, Ambassador Smiley!
