An emoticon (/motkn/) is a pictorial representation of a facial expression using punctuation marks and letters, usually written to express a person's

mood. Emoticons are used to alert a responder to the temper of a statement, and can improve interpretation of plain text. The word emoticon comes from 2 English words, Emotion and Icon. Emoticons are often used in web forum, online games, instant messenger and even in our daily SMS texts. Some historians claimed that the first emoticon is the 88 sign mean kisses and love. It was translate d from Morse Code. Some of them also said that the first emoticon was created by Abraham Lincoln in one of his speechs script where he wrote ;) at the end of the script. But in the end, they all agreed that it was a typo. The real man behind the creation of emoticons is Scott Falhman from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It started when Scott put a simple notice on a general board at his college, which sound like this:

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

Scott E

Fahlman

:-)

Fahlman <Fahlman at Cmu-20c>

I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers: :-) Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark For this, use

things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. :-(

Within a few months, it became a worldwide trend and spread to all over the world through the ARPANET and Usenet. After a while, Scott and his friends added more variations on the theme for the emoticons. Nowadays, there are two types of emoticons, The Wrong Sided Emoticons and The Right Sided Emoticons. The W.S.E is the one that created by Scott Falhman. People called it with that name because it was written and read at sideway position, while, The R.S.E is from Japan and based on Manga and Anime cartoons. The name was given because it was written and read the right way position along with text. Western Emoticons :) :( :P :D :( XD :@ :S :> B) Japanese Emoticons ^.^ O.o -.- >.< @.@ X_X T_T e.e _ *-*

Using the latest technologies, emoticons that are written using punctuation marks and letter are often changed into small corresponding image. For example, if we wrote an emoticons using the punctuation marks and letters in Facebook Chat or even SMS text, the receiver will receive instead of :). This will help the receiver to easily understand the emoticon. As the conclusion, emoticons will always evolve and change within the time and technology.

The following article is obtained and edited from the History Of Emoticons at www.wikipedia.com