The story of the emoticon

• The story of smiley

In September, the most versatile in the world of the written language has a birthday. History joyful faces was born out of a joke scientists "nerds." Tells how it was.

The story of the emoticon

For the first time in history to use a bracket as a smile guessed Russian-American writer Vladimir Nabokov, who said in 1969 in an interview with The New York Times Alden Whitman: "We have to think of some typographic sign, indicating a smile - some flourish or had fallen on his back brace, which I would have to escort the answer to your question. "

The story of the emoticon

Smile also in the form in which we see it now, celebrates his birthday since September 19, 1982, when the American Scott Fahlman suggested the use of just such a set of printing plates. Then, in the university group of American scientists "nerds", in the words of the BBC itself Fahlman, was developed communication style flame - dispute for the sake of argument. Ideas discussed craziest whether bird disorienting space stay in the cabin of the elevator falling or what would happen if in the same cabin pour mercury. After stating that, perhaps, is to avoid the university elevator, admin groups worried - in fact an ordinary person who has read the correspondence, decides that all discussion seriously, and therefore we must think of a way to mark a joke graphically. So there was a colon, a dash, and two brackets - to indicate sadness and joy. To think of it, Scott took 10 minutes, and then he did not imagine that will go down in history. Internet (then APRANET), the former is still the domain of the military, was released in the civilian world, and smiles - with him. In Russia, smiles appeared much later, in the 90s. Surprisingly, we have our own particular writing. We neglect the dash, reducing sign up :) and sometimes omitted and colon, but immediately write a number of brackets, roughly rejoicing and as rapidly sorrow. As acknowledged by the same Fahlman, he is like a man with a lot of double chins.