The First Smiley?

[Drew Danielson]

Even if Barry's antedating pans out, shouldn't it be taken into
consideration whether that was a nonce occurence?

If there were evidence of more than a few occurences in 'off-line'
discourse of smileys composed of a colon & an end-parenthesis, it should
be reasonable to say that Fahlman's proposal was a borrowing rather than
a coinage.

But if the 1953 print ad did not represent an early example of a
convention, if there were significant temporal disconnects between
occurences before 1982, then Fahlman's proposal should be considered a
coinage.

(Or am I being parochial?  CMU folks have been accused of that
before...)

FWIW, ESR's Jargon File cites a "rival claim by one KevinMcKenzie, who
seems to have proposed the smiley on the MsgGroup mailing list, April 12
1979."
http://tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/emoticon.html




Grant Barrett wrote:
>
> Actually, I'd like Barry to confirm his transcript of the advertisement
> in his original post (copied below). The punctuation-based emoticons
> were there, right Barry? Or were they more like the yellow-faced Harvey
> Ball smiley faces?
>
> [original post]
>
> This continues discussion of the pictograph known as the "smiley." It's
> authorship was credited to the late Harvey Ball (who drew it in the
> 1960s). "Smiley" is in an ad in the NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE, 10 March
> 1953, pg. 20, cols. 4-6. See for yourself. The ad is for the film LILI,
> with the "delightful" Leslie Caron. The "World Premiere Today" is at
> the Trans-Lux 52nd on Lexington. The film opened nationwide, and this
> ad possibly ran in many newspapers.
>
> Today
>
> You'll laugh :)
> You'll cry :(
> You'll love (Heart-shaped face--ed.)
> _Lili_
>
> [end post]
>
> --
> Grant Barrett
> gbarrett at worldnewyork.org
> Small Business Apple Macintosh Support in New York City
> http://www.worldnewyork.org/

--



DREW DANIELSON . <andrew.danielson at cmu.edu> . http://pcdrew.ece.cmu.edu/
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