Following up on the announcement of the smiley emoticon's 25th birthday is an exploration of its prehistory. LanguageLog delves into earlier typographical shapes for emotions, touching on PLATO-era emoticons, a 1967 Reader's Digest letter, and even Ambrose Bierce. Not to mention Vladimir Nabokov:
Nabokov: I often think there should exist a special typographical sign for a smile – some sort of concave mark, a supine round bracket, which I would now like to trace in reply to your question.
(via Cranky Professor)
I wonder, are there any emoticons in hyroglyphics?
This all reminds me of a flame war I once read regarding the band Journey's cover for their album Escape. One side stated it was the first example of "133t" text, the other disagreed.
Posted by: peter naegele | September 22, 2007 at 08:36
That Bierce bit about "snigger points" is priceless -- I really need to read more of his essays. I'm a big fan of his ghost stories and horror stories.
I'm reminded of two of his classic short-short horror stories: "Charles Ashmore's Trail" and "The Difficulty of Crossing a Field." They both tell the same basic story -- someone vanishes mysteriously -- but while the former is a fairly straight celebration of the uncanny, the latter is IMO full of unwritten snigger points and notes of cachinnation.
Posted by: HP | September 24, 2007 at 15:04
Today I learn Nabokov and Bierce are cool with emoticons. Tomorrow I'll read that Henry James was a progenitor of LOLCATS.
Posted by: Brian | September 25, 2007 at 02:02
Peter, wouldn't hieroglyphic emoticons be akin to those in comic strips? Storm clouds over an angry person, a stream of text for swearing.
Good Bierce choices, HP. You should blog about the essays you read. Bierce's stories are indeed excellent.
I detect a pattern, Brian. We already have Welles the podcaster. Tolkien and Tolstoy doing map mashups!
(Although having a James character shout "I IZ EATING YUR MANNERZ" won't leave my mind)
Posted by: Bryan Alexander | September 25, 2007 at 08:13
Peter, wouldn't hieroglyphic emoticons be akin to those in comic strips? Storm clouds over an angry person, a stream of text for swearing.
Good Bierce choices, HP. You should blog about the essays you read. Bierce's stories are indeed excellent.
I detect a pattern, Brian. We already have Welles the podcaster. Tolkien and Tolstoy doing map mashups!
(Although having a James character shout "I IZ EATING YUR MANNERZ" won't leave my mind)
Posted by: Bryan Alexander | September 25, 2007 at 08:19
Took me time to read all the comments, but I enjoyed the article.
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