35 lines
4.6 KiB
HTML
35 lines
4.6 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>emoticon</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../E.html" title="E"/><link rel="previous" href="email.html" title="email"/><link rel="next" href="EMP.html" title="EMP"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">emoticon</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="email.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">E</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="EMP.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="emoticon"/><dt xmlns="" id="emoticon"><b>emoticon</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="pronunciation">/ee·moh´ti·kon/</span>, <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> [common] An ASCII glyph used to indicate an emotional state in email
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or news. Although originally intended mostly as jokes, emoticons (or some
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other explicit humor indication) are virtually required under certain
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circumstances in high-volume text-only communication forums such as Usenet;
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the lack of verbal and visual cues can otherwise cause what were intended
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to be humorous, sarcastic, ironic, or otherwise non-100%-serious comments
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to be badly misinterpreted (not always even by
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<a href="../N/newbie.html"><i class="glossterm">newbie</i></a>s), resulting in arguments and
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<a href="../F/flame-war.html"><i class="glossterm">flame war</i></a>s.</p><p>Hundreds of emoticons have been proposed, but only a few are in
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common use. These include: </p><div class="informaltable"><table border="1"><colgroup><col/><col/></colgroup><tbody><tr><td>:-)</td><td>‘smiley face’ (for humor,
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laughter, friendliness, occasionally sarcasm)</td></tr><tr><td>:-(</td><td>‘frowney face’ (for sadness,
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anger, or upset)</td></tr><tr><td>;-)</td><td>‘half-smiley’ (
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<a href="../H/ha-ha-only-serious.html"><i class="glossterm">ha ha only serious</i></a>); also known as <span class="firstterm">semi-smiley</span> or <span class="firstterm">winkey face</span>.</td></tr><tr><td>:-/</td><td>‘wry face’</td></tr></tbody></table></div><p> (These may become more comprehensible if you
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tilt your head sideways, to the left.) The first two listed are by far the
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most frequently encountered. Hyphenless forms of them are common on
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CompuServe, GEnie, and BIX; see also <a href="../B/bixie.html"><i class="glossterm">bixie</i></a>. On
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<a href="../U/Usenet.html"><i class="glossterm">Usenet</i></a>, <span class="firstterm">smiley</span>
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is often used as a generic term synonymous with
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<a href="emoticon.html"><i class="glossterm">emoticon</i></a>, as well as specifically for the happy-face
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emoticon.</p></dd><dd><p>The invention of the original smiley and frowney emoticons is
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generally credited to Scott Fahlman at CMU in 1982. He later wrote:
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“<span class="quote">I wish I had saved the original post, or at least recorded the date
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for posterity, but I had no idea that I was starting something that would
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soon pollute all the world's communication channels.</span>” In September
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2002 the original post <a href="http://research.microsoft.com/~mbj/Smiley/Smiley.html" target="_top"> was
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recovered</a>.</p><p>There is a rival claim by one Kevin McKenzie, who seems to have
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proposed the smiley on the MsgGroup mailing list, April 12 1979. It seems
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likely these two inventions were independent. Users of the PLATO
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educational system <a href=" http://www.platopeople.com/emoticons.html" target="_top">
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report</a> using emoticons composed from overlaid dot-matrix graphics
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in the 1970s.</p><p>Note for the <a href="../N/newbie.html"><i class="glossterm">newbie</i></a>: Overuse of the smiley is
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a mark of loserhood! More than one per paragraph is a fairly sure sign
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that you've gone over the line.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="email.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../E.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="EMP.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">email </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> EMP</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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