Version 6 of emoticons

Updated 2002-03-15 22:22:27

emoticon is a term that evolved in internet culture from mailing list and usenet users.

(something I've always wondered is how to pronounce the word. "emote-icons"?, "emohshicons"?)

During the early days, someone [anyone have more details here?] used the ASCII string :-) to indicate a smile.

Re: History of "emoticons" try: http://www.fastcompany.com/launch/launch_feature/emoticon.html or Google for "Scott Fahlman" -- Dave Griffin

Since that time, many emoticons have evolved [someone want to put some urls here to emoticon encyclopedias - preferably freely distributable ones??]

In recent years, several of the graphical messaging clients have added a graphical touch - converting ascii strings typed by the users into some icon.

Tkchat recently added this functionality. Some of the emoticons it supports includes:

 :-( :^( :(              - cry
 8-( 8^( 8( 8-| 8^| 8|   - growl
 LOL                     - Laugh Out Loud
 >:( >:-( >:^(           - mad
 :-o :^o :o :-O :^O :O   - surprise
 :-) :^) :)              - smile
 :-D :^D :D              - big smile
 <:-) <:^) <:)           - dorky smile
 8-) 8^) 8)              - smiley with glasses
                         - smiley with tongue
 ;/ ;-/ ;^/ :/ :-/ :^/ 8/ 8-/ 8^/  - smirk with glasses
 :-p :^p :p :-P :^P :P   - smiley with tongue, 2
 (: (^: (-:              - upside down
 ;-) ;^) ;)              - wink

There's a few holes in the table above because I was unable to determine what triggered the icons.

BBH notes that version 42 supports a /smile command (or /smiles /smiley /smileys) to display a window with all the emoticons & which ascii triggers them