Apparently it's Nostalgic Monday here at Splice. In that same vein, here's the untold history of the emoticon, as found in the original thread from 1982. This thread is hilarious, as it debated, quite seriously, whether or not jokes require a symbol to prevent misunderstanding. Not a whole lot has changed since the '80s, eh? (Note: The thread is more difficult to understand when cut and pasted, so hit the jump for the full effect.)
19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman :-)
From: Scott E Fahlman <Fahlman at Cmu-20c>
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
:-(
