:-)

 

Today (9/19) is the 23rd birthday of the smiley emoticon. :-) Should you doubt my word, read the history provided by the inventor himself, Scott Fahlman.

Since Scott's done all the talking here, let me provided added value by linking to ...

• ... some emoticon dictionaries (#, #).[1]
  
  
  
• ... discussions of emoticons (WikiPedia, Webopedia, Jargon File).
  
  
  
• ... netiquette and emoticons (PC World, Microsoft).
  
  
  
• ... scholarly papers ("Emoticons - A Strategy In Attempt At Multimodality For Computer Mediated Written Communication", "Using Emoticons to reduce Dependency in Machine Learning Techniques for Sentiment Classification").
  
  
  
• ... a blog entry + comments on cultural and aesthetic differences in the use of emoticons, and a forum discussion on emoticons.
  
  
  
• ... the Quebeck French word for "emoticon."
  
  
  
• [more]
  

  :-)

(Via: http://www.mikepope.com/blog/)