September 19: :-)

^{On some computers, readers will see smiley faces throughout this memorable moment. If you see a smiley face, it should be read as the emoticon in the title which is the same as the first emoticon on the list below.}

On 19 September 1982, Scott E. Forman posted an electronic bulletin board message in which he proposed that :-) be used to indicate a message that is not to be taken seriously. In “Smiley Lore :-),” Forman explains, “The problem was that if someone made a sarcastic remark, a few readers would fail to get the joke, and each of them would post a lengthy diatribe in response. That would stir up more people with more responses, and soon the original thread of the discussion was buried.”

The :-) is rendered by contemporary programs as a smiley face. It has also lead to emoticons that show other emotions in written text where non-verbal communication is not available. Emoticons have even been developed to produce images that do not deal with emotion. For example, some programs render %%- as a four leaf clover signifying good luck or ~O) as a cup of coffee.

The first written language was cuneiform script which was written on clay tablets by the Sumerians c. 3000 BCE. The system initially started as pictograms which were characters that resembled the object they represented. However, over time, the number of characters declined and became more abstract.
Use the Medication according to the Recommended Dosage Instructions The medication cialis brand online should be used according to the extent or gravity of the injury. Impotence is one of those issues that does not leave the man so easily or does not go away from a man viagra 10mg abacojet.com s life. This allows you to perform better in the bedroom abacojet.com generico levitra on line go for a complete toss. For the uninitiated, unsolicited marketing emails tadalafil 20mg generic http://abacojet.com/levitra-6831.html are considered spam.
The second known written language is Egyptian hieroglyphics which developed shortly after cuneiform script. The Egyptians believed that writing was invented by Thoth. Generally Thoth is depicted as a man with the head of an ibis.

Because I cannot determine the origin of the following image, I cannot be sure if we are viewing Forman or a follower of Thoth. :-)

–Steven L. Berg, PhD

Posted on September 19, 2013 by stevenlberg
Categories: World History: Ancient, World History: Modern
Tags: Egypt, humor, Sumeria, writing

8 Responses

Ryan Dickson says:

19 September 2012 at 2:52 am

Scott E. Formans’ simple :-) used on his electronic bulletin board in 1982 has transformed over the last 30 years in the world of texting. Most people today know that emoticons as simply :). This expression too has multply meanings. It could mean someone expressing happiness. It also could mean another form of laughing or used as sarcasm. There are numerous emoticons used in texting all with different meanings. :( means sad :0 means shocked :* means a kiss :/ means confused and there are tons more. All emoticons or texting symbols can have more then one meaning. It just depends on the person and the context it is used in.

Reply
Chris Hernandez says:

19 September 2012 at 6:44 pm

I find it fascinating that a simple symbol or now we call them emoticons that Scott E. Forman once used to just communicate on an electronic bulletin board is now being used all over the world in text form now. Even as i write this response their is someone composing a text message and most likely using an emoticon to sign off on the text, to tell the person that they are happy, sad, angry etc. however i feel like you need a little dictionary to carry around with at all times because their are so many meanings to these emoticons it does get confusing if you don’t text often enough to fully understand these emoticons.

Reply
Nick Kalte says:

19 September 2012 at 10:21 pm

I find it funny how Scott E. Forman had no intention to create the most popular way of texting in history. He had no idea what he just started and all he was trying to do was put a simple smile, or anyway of showing emotion. It has evolved so much and is now so common in almost any text message you look at.

Reply
Daniel Rathburn says:

21 September 2012 at 4:05 pm

I found this post interesting, and quite relevant today. It’s funny that something posted on a message board thirty years ago is now a part of every cell phone owner’s (everyone) life. I remember in my days as a novice “texter” to save myself from embarrassment, I often had to look up what the more complicated emoticons meant, defeating Scott E. Forman’s original purpose. Although emoticons are used to link messages with emotions, I think there is a lot lost in communication through texting. As Ryan stated above, people use emoticons in different ways, causing confusion for its receiver. A number of factors attribute to the misunderstandings that occur in a conversation via text: sarcasm is not felt, sincerity cannot be judged, and of course, the woes of auto correct.

Reply
Kelly Gunn says:

28 November 2012 at 5:53 pm

While reading this I noticed that I always saw :-) as a smiley face and never as the symbols they really are. The emotions that Forman created were just a first step, now there are plenty more. The <3 which is seen as a heart and :* as a kissing face are just some of the emotions that have also been made up recently. The one thing that to this day has not been determined completely, is how to comprehend what each emoticon truly means without any confusion. This makes me wonder if the “Emoji” app found on the iphone would have even been founded without that push from Forman. Without his post of the emoticons, who knows how we would express emotions through a message today.

Reply
Jenna Elwell says:

1 December 2012 at 5:41 pm

Hieroglyphics is “a combination of two Egyptian words hieros meaning ‘holy’ and glyphe meaning ‘carving’.” We could then call hieroglyphics sacred picture writing. Carvings were called sacred because they were carved by priests and only at certain places such as temples, tombs, public buildings, and monuments. Priests were also the only ones who could learn and write hieroglyphics.

There were five phases of the ancient Egyptian language. They were Old Egyptian, classical Egyptian, late Egyptian, demotic, and Coptic. Over the course of the 3,500 years that hieroglyphs were used, the language went through many changes and the number of signs had also increased to about one thousand.

Today, the Egyptian hieroglyph language is taught in universities as people are still very interested in it. Egyptologist Stuart Tyson Smith was asked to develop a language similar to that of the ancient Egyptians for the film Stargate. However, few words of the Egyptian language remain in the English language. Those words that are associated with ancient Egypt are usually translated into Greek forms.

Jenna Elwell

Reply
David Miller says:

7 December 2012 at 6:23 pm

It’s incredible to see how much the written language has developed since 3000 BC when the Sumerians invented cuneiform script. Research suggests that Egyptians first used writing to keep track of property lines and possesions. Most notably, beer. Dr. Berg encouraged my classmates and I to research the early importance of the commodity. In fact, we found that beer is one of the major factors that caused people to leave behind the nomadic tradition. The reason for this is because barley requires time to sow and harvest. Barley was used to make bread and more often beer: an excellent source of nutrients and calories in ancient times.

Writing has undergone many changes since then. It evolved from Egyptian hieroglyphs to other forms such as the Cretan hieroglyphs and then Greek scripts. Greek scripts are believed to have evolved into the Greek alphabet several centuries later: one of the most prominent forms of writing in history. The Greek alphabet is still used extensively today in mathematics and science. Writing has evolved much since then, and it’s humerous to me how popular emoticons and short texts have become. Personally, I am not a fan of short texting language, but I would definitely argue it’s a language of it’s own.

Not only has the actual language changed over the millenia, but our form of communication as well. Throughout the ancient world, we see writing carved into clay tablets, bone, statues, and other architecture as well. In the 20th century, the main form of communication was a pencil and paper. We still use this today, but we are rapidly approaching a paperless world as technology advances. Centuries from now, will we communicate only by electronic means? Only time will tell. ¯\(°_o)/¯

Reply
Chris Long says:

9 December 2012 at 10:56 pm

Scott E Forman unitentionally created one of the most popular characteristics in text messaging today. :) This is used to show someone that you are either happy or being sarcastic. The simple addition of an emoticon can change the entire way something is read. I have personal experience where the lack of an emoticon proved to cause some problems because the reader misunderstood what was trying to be said. Without being able to hear the tone in someones voice it is easy to misread the information at hand.

Reply