Smile, smile, smile :-)

Happy Birthday to Smiley! Reported by Wired Blogs, The Chronicle, and undoubtedly dozens more technology and news blogs, today is Smiley's 25th birthday. Invented by Scott Fahlman at Carnegie Mellon University in 1982, Smiley has since been used (and misused!) and has been the forefather to emoticons.

"Fahlman posted the first emoticon Sept. 19, 1982 in answer to a discussion about the limits of humor in online test and how users could denote comments meant to be taken lightly. Despite the protests of many an English professor, who claim (quite correctly) that the limits of humor in text are the result of poor writing skills, emoticons are here to stay." (Gilbertson, Compiler Wired Blogs, 9/19/07)

Is it odd that today is also "Talk Like a Pirate Day?"

;-)

Tags: Smiley, Emoticons, Scott Fahlman, Carnegie Mellon University