Short take: "smiley face" - OED WOTD

Mon May 10 18:22:17 UTC 2010

Wasn't the first smiley face Alfred E, Neuman?  Just remove his 2nd
most distinctive feature, the jug handles.

Joel

At 5/10/2010 02:00 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>My guess is that any "smiley face" in 1957 must have been inspired by what
>young children draw atop stick figures.  Twenty years later, the yellow Ball
>design had completely usurped that semantic space.
>
>As Victor says, the Ball face has certainly come to symbolize "banality"
>also.
>
>The Ball design differs from even the most perfect child's smiley face in
>much the same way as one of Roy Lichtenstein's revised pop-art cartoon
>panels differs from the original. Few kids could have drawn the Ball face's
>dimply mouth with such adeptness, and few would have eschewed big dots for
>eyes in favor of Ball's small, upright oblongs.
>
>Too bad you didn't trademark the fanged smiley, Victor. You'd be worth
>millions.
>
>
>JL
>
>On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 11:50 AM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: Short take: "smiley face" - OED WOTD
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > No one has ever accused me of stopping digging too soon, so I'll give it
> > another crack.
> >
> > What Jon Lighter calls "connotation of laudably sunny optimism" cum
> > "cheerful conformity", we used to identify as a symbol of invasive,
> > pestilent banality, which is exactly the use made of it in Zippy and in
> > a number of films (although I can't cite any specific ones at the
> > moment). But, I suspect, Jon is more correct than he thinks when he
> > mentions its description as "Happy Face" rather than "Smiley Face". I
> > would suggest, however, that the reason is precisely the opposite of
> > what might be expected--"smiley face" was so ubiquitous in its
> > description of the hand-drawn variety that "Happy Face" might have
> > seemed more appropriate for the deconstructed black-on-yellow image. A
> > smiley face had two elements--an inverted arc or a squiggle, the smile,
> > and two dots, the eyes. A Happy Face was a complete, albeit
> > deconstructed, face, so other elements (complete circle, color,
> > geometric precision) were required.
> >
> > For reasons that should be obvious, by now, I grew up without ever
> > having seen a Ball design before I was 16. However, I've seen smileys on
> > student papers--made by both teachers and students--earlier than that.
> > My first association of the Ball design was with "Have a nice day!",
> > which was a rather standard pairing in the early 1980s (my frame of
> > reference) and, in some ways, still is. WalMart's usurpation of the
> > symbol for its ad campaign has only made the association with banality
> > worse.
> >
> > I suppose, as an expression of resentment, I've always drawn my Smiley
> > Faces with fangs--and by Smiley Faces, this time, I mean the full-circle
> > design rather than the two-element drawing. In 1985, a friend and I put
> > two 3D fanged smileys (one sticking a long tongue out at the other) in
> > the MIT Residence Guide under the description of one of the dorms--one
> > that Wiki describes as "long known for its alternative culture",
> > although a better phrase might have been "resistance to conformity" (not
> > even goths were welcome *as a group*--current housemasters refer to it
> > as "reputation for eccentricity"). The caption under the image was "Have
> > a Day". At the time, the image drew objections from the Dean's Office,
> > but it was retained because no official pretext for striking it was ever
> > found. There are certainly plenty of fanged--as well as
> > cross-eyed--versions of the Ball design today as there likely have been
> > some before ours.
> >
> > The real question is, did "smiley face" have an association in the 1960s
> > with the simplistic two-element drawing or with the full Ball design. If
> > it was the former, that the 1957 appearance is, as I said earlier, of a
> > piece. If not, then it is coincidental. Although there is a full figure
> > in the design in the 1957 article, the "smiley face" only refers to what
> > appears on the paper plate, which AFAICT is the two-element drawing.
> >
> > I did put a caveat on the pre-1963 citations and I remain of the opinion
> > that they are distinct but related and special uses. But I will defer to
> > resident lexicographers.
> >
> >     VS-)
> >
> >
> >
> > On 5/10/2010 9:49 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> > > The issue seems to be whether a "smiley face" must be a "Smiley Face,"
> > i.e.
> > > either Ball design or something very close to it.
> > > Even if the 1957 face was virtually indistinguishable from the Ball
> > design,
> > > it would not, IMO, be a "Smiley Face."  Why?  Because the ubiquity of the
> > > yellow Ball design in (IIRC) the late 1970s (some years after its
> > creation)
> > > has essentially monopolized the semantic content of the phrase since
> > then.
> > >
> > > For the past thirty-odd years, when someone has said "smiley face," the
> > > yellow Ball design has been taken as the norm. (Assuming others think as
> > I
> > > do.)
> > >
> > > While it may be splitting hairs from a lexicographical perspective, given
> > > the similarity of the 1957 face to the 1970s face, "smiley face" in 1957
> > > could not have had the connotations of laudably sunny optimism (or
> > > kitschy, cheerful conformity - take your pick),  that it acquired some
> > > twenty years later. I'd argue. perhaps paradoxically, that "smiley face"
> > > became a "special compound" in the 1970s even if that's precisely how the
> > > 1957 writer would have characterized a time-traveling Ball smiley in
> > 1957.
> > >
> > > BTW, since the '70s when I first conceptualized the image based on the
> > Ball
> > > design, I've usually called it a "happy face."  "Smiley face" was
> > somebody
> > > else's locution.
> > >
> > > Ten or fifteen years ago I obtained a yellow smiley pin with a
> > straight-line
> > > mouth and perfectly round eyes. It is meant to suggest, "Have an Ordinary
> > > Day!"  It was also available in gray. Shortly afterward more bitter
> > variants
> > > appeared, including a happy smiley with a bleeding bullet wound between
> > the
> > > eyes.
> >
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>
>
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>
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