It turns 25.... :-)

Its easy to get lost in this (Digital) world.. the place where we make friends, talk, share with people whom we wouldn have even met. Yet when someone sends a casual smiley to us, we respond in the same casual manner. They may be sitting in some remote part of the world, yet some of them form a close circle of frends and people who share the common interests, views and likings. Yes, a lot of social networking sites and chat rooms have mushroomed over the years which never make u feel alone on this lonely planet. So, if you are one of those net animals, glued to the web chatting, browsing, blogging.. here is something i wud like to share with you all. It has become the most commonly used lingo across the net world, and it turns 25 years today. Its the smiley :-) ...

The creator of the original the emoticons :-) and :-( , with a specific suggestion that they be used to express emotion, was Scott Fahlman. Below is the text of his original proposal, posted to the Carnegie Mellon University computer science general board on 19 September 1982.

19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman :-)
From: Scott E Fahlman

I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:

:-)

Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark
things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use

:-(

Click here for a compiled list of netlingo emoticons... an interesting list actually. Many of them are really quite thoughtful.