:-P

Some of us experienced mixed feelings when the David Shipley and Will Schwalbe, authors of Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home, plunked themselves firmly on the side of emoticons in emails: "Even though we're well out of junior high, we like emoticons and think there are good uses for them. . . . Emoticons are an attempt to put a human face on faceless, quick communication" (134).

Regardless of how we may feel about the ubiquitous smiling faces, tomorrow--Wednesday, 19 September 2007--is the 25th birthday of the emoticon. :o)

Scott E. Fahlman, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, invented the digital smiley face and first made use of it in the following email message:

9-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman :-)
From: Scott E Fahlman

I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:

:-)

Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use

:-(

Celebrate the computer smiley's birthday by reading how Professor Fahlman created the original at Smiley Lore :-)

P.S. Our favorite smiley is the Santa emoticon: