Bierce's emoticon

[Douglas G. Wilson]

In following the "smog" story, I came upon Bierce's proposed emoticon, or
"smiley":

http://www.keele.ac.uk/depts/as/Literature/Bierce/biercefoot.html#FN1-15

(Note 13):

<<Bierce proposed "an improvement in punctuation - the snigger point, or
note of cachinnation: it is written thus \___/! and presents, as near as
may be, a smiling mouth. It is to be appended, with the full stop, [or
exclamation mark as Bierce's later example used] to every jocular or
ironical sentence".>>

No doubt somebody somewhere has a collection of 100 earlier emoticons --
including cuneiform, hieroglyphic, and greater-seal smileys -- but this was
a new one (or rather an old one) on me. (^_^)

-- Doug Wilson