Is That an Emoticon in 1862? in NYT

[Jonathan Lighter]

"After these things Paul departed from Athens, and came to Corinth; And
found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, lately come from
Italy, with his wife Priscilla; (because that Claudius had commanded all
Jews to depart from Rome:) and came unto them."

Two in one sentence...I feel a sequel to _The Bible Code_ coming on.

JL

On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 9:52 AM, David Bowie <db.list at pmpkn.net> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       David Bowie <db.list at PMPKN.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Is That an Emoticon in 1862? in NYT
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I missed the original post, so apologies if the lack of context
> misconstrues meaning.
>
> At 11:05 PM -0500 1/19/09, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
> > Adding to the idiocy of the whole thing is the fact that if the ;) is an
> > emoticon, where's the closing parenthesis?
>
> > "I am here upon the scaffold" (wink, wink!)
>
> I doubt emoticons existed in 1862, myself, but i'd point out that i (and
> i'm not alone on this) use emoticons as closing parentheses, so that the
> ) is doing double duty, as in:
>
> I vehemently disagree (as if you couldn't tell;) but that doesn't really
> matter.
>
> My favorite non-emoticon examples come from the Authorised/King James
> Bible, actually, where you get such wonderfully odd readings for the
> modern eye as Acts 18:1-2:
>
> After these things Paul departed from Athens, and came to Corinth; And
> found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, lately come from
> Italy, with his wife Priscilla; (because that Claudius had commanded all
> Jews to depart from Rome:) and came unto them.
>
> --
> David Bowie                               University of Central Florida
>     Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the
>     house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is
>     chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed.
>
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