Happy Birthday to :-)

by Mary Ann Romans | More from this Blogger

19 Sep 2007 11:53 AM

Can you believe that the :-) is 25 years old? That is right, the little colon-dash-right parenthesis smiley face has a birthday, at least according to the guy who claims to have invented it.

Scott E. Fahlman, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University says that he came up with the idea of using those three keystrokes to produce a sideways smiley face, exactly 25 years ago yesterday. Fahlman says he posted the smiley in a message to an online electronic bulletin board. The board messages were discussing the limits of online humor and how to make it known that some comments were meant to be taken lightly.

"I propose the following character sequence for joke markers: :-)," wrote Fahlman. "Read it sideways," he typed.

Since then, the smiley, and other emoticons, as these type of keystrokes became known, have take off across the Internet. Computer users use them to convey humor, anger, sadness, happiness, and a whole range of emotion.

The Associated Press reported on this story and says that they contacted computer science and linguistics professors who all said they were unaware of the first person to "invent" or use the smiley symbol.

Fahlman and his colleges at Carnegie Mellon are starting an annual contest for students for innovation in technology assisted communication of a person-to-person nature. The school's website features a page about Fahlman and the :-), where the professor makes his claim as creator. "I've never seen any hard evidence that the :-) sequence was in use before my original post, and I've never run into anyone who actually claims to have invented it before I did," his statement reads.

Nowadays, chatting and message posting online has become a bit more sophisticated, but the emoticons still play a real part. Many chatting software programs or message posting forums give you a wide range of cartoon-like emoticons to choose from. Many programs even automatically convert your standard colon-dash-right parenthesis to a colored smiley. To see these modern smileys for yourself, just check out the forums here at Families.com, for example.

So happy birthday smiley, and don't forget to blow out your candles. :-O

Mary Ann Romans writes about everything related to saving money in the Frugal Blog, technology in the Computing Blog, and creating a home in the Home Blog. You can read more of her articles by clicking here.

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Mary Ann Romans is a freelance writer, wife and mother of three children. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, the kids and a 16-pound cat.

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Tristi Pinkston (10839) 19 Sep 2007 12:25 PM

Happy birthday, Smiley Face!! I'll remember you next time I sent an e-mail.

Courtney Mroch (9169) 19 Sep 2007 03:18 PM

Holy crow, 25 already??? Neat article and lesson for the day!