Like prehistoric cave dwellers, the devotees of electronic bulletin-boards and
"e-mail" have struggled to find a new way to express themselves. Wall painting
would not work. Words, it seems, are not enough. Inarticulate sounds cannot be
displayed on screens. To make their messages feel more like personal contact,
they have hit on using the punctuation marks on an ordinary keyboard in order
to pull faces at each other. To read these signs, you have to put your head on
your left shoulder. The basic unit is:
:-)
the "smiley", a standard smiling face. In context, this can mean "I'm happy to
hear from you", or other pleasantries. The smiley can also wink:
;-)
Of course the possibilities are endless, and they have all been posted to the
net (a million times).
