On Fri, Sep 13, 2002 at 07:45:47AM -0400, Grant Barrett wrote: > A Usenet post which contains the supposed first use of :) as a smiley > or emoticon, from 19 September 1982, has been uncovered. > > http://research.microsoft.com/~mbj/Smiley/Smiley.html I thought Barry had posted an example from a newspaper ad from the 1950s at one point. Jesse Sheidlower