The wonderful guitarist and looper
Bill Walker wondered:
BTW is there a universal symbol
for irony or sarcasm ? Sometimes the
smiley face doesn't quite cut it.
Bill
I found this
page:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2002/sep/19/netnotes
with this text?interesting stuff .
. .
1. Twenty years ago today a computer scientist
from the Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA named Scott Fahlman first
suggested the use of a smiley, or emoticon, as a way of expressing sarcasm of irony
in emails to the humourously challenged. ;-)
2. Fahlman's September 19 1982
message posted on a university message board has gone down in internet
folklore as the year zero of smiley language. :-)
3. Fahlman explains the origins of the
emoticon in his smiley lore. The emoticon has become so popular that an Emoticon News Bureau has been created to monitor events in the
world of the smiley. :~/
4. Yet despite this momentous invention,
Fahlman has never made a penny from it. He did not realise what a popular
new language he had invented on that September day, he never thought to patent
it or even to keep a record of the day himself. :-(
5. However, a debate has arisen over whether
Fahlman is the true inventor of the smiley. According to the Internet Tip's
brief history of the smiley, a man called Kevin MacKenzie sent the first
smiley in an email on April 12 1979. His emoticon was the symbol -) meaning
"tongue in cheek". 8-]
6. No matter who invented it, the Hacker's
Dictionary describes the emoticon as a vital way to prevent
misunderstandings between hackers that could lead to arguments and flame
wars! :-0
7. Smileys have evolved so far that they are
now used in everyday internet conversations along with other abbreviations such as
lol and brb. The Newbie Profile provides a useful, if somewhat confusing guide
to using smileys in messages. 8~/
