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From: hovy@vaxa.isi.EDU.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest
Subject: terminaltalk   (i.e.,  [| <-> |] )
Message-ID: <8708171929.AA02552@vaxa.isi.edu>
Date: Mon, 17-Aug-87 15:29:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: vaxa.8708171929.AA02552
Posted: Mon Aug 17 15:29:04 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Aug-87 08:59:36 EDT
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Approved: ailist@stripe.sri.com


Who introduced the faces for our bboard language 

   :-)  and  :-(  and  :-|  

and how many others were there? (I remember first seeing them 
about two or three years ago.) 



In what order did these marks develop? As far as I know, 

   when you wanted to emphasize something, I mean REALLY 
   EMPHASIZE it, you capitalized... 

which, pretty soon, was replaced by 

   the *much* *more* elegant stars... 

Why? 



Is emphasis enough? How about that little request for 
confirmation, to make sure the audience is with you? Or 
just to show a hint of reservation? But perhaps we never 
use that noninteractively. (--?) 


Do we need the tension-building pause and resolution? How about: 

   so she slowly opened the door, and inside, she saw... 
   >>>> Meese <<<<! >>>> Eating cheesecake <<<<! 



Does the order of development of these marks mean anything? 
What will terminaltalk look like in fifty years' time? Colored 
words? How narrow IS (but not *is* (--?)) the bandwidth of the 
terminal? Has anyone looked at these questions? 

Hmm... 

E


  [I'm sure many of these typographic conventions have arisen
  from the print world.  I like to use >>this<< notation for
  italics, which seems less obtrusive and easier to pair-match
  than ***s.  (It was my own invention, although I've had an
  editor ask me if I meant "Spanish quotes.")  Another emphatic
  form you didn't mention was made famous by H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N.
  Words can also be  s t r e t c h e d  on a terminal.  Uppercase
  is generally taken to mean SHOUTING, although consistent uppercase
  often signifies that the sender is on an Army base.  University
  students often use @i(Scribe) or {\it TeX} notation, which permits
  distinguishing italics from boldface but is neither graphic
  (i.e., "vivid") nor sufficiently universal.

  What does the future hold?  Why animated 3-D color graphics, of
  course.  (Animated text is already a hackers' specialty.  Arpanetters
  can try the "finger laws@sri.com" command for a simple example.)
  I'm looking forward to typing in Oriental brush strokes.  See the
  last CACM for an interesting article about word processing in Arabic.

  I don't recall seeing smiley faces in print, although Reader's
  Digest had a note about a -) tongue-in-cheek symbol about twenty
  years ago.  (Another typographic innovation was the interrobang,
  used when ?!??!!! seems appropriate -- but far less >>precise<<,
  to my way of thinking.)  I once saw a book about making birthday
  cakes, faces, and other graphics using red and black typewriter
  symbols (including many overstruck characters) -- I still have a
  bookplate that I constucted from the illustrated borders, flourishes,
  and composite-character alphabets.

  Someone at Stanford tried to pin down the origin of the smiley
  faces, without success.  I'll forward three of the more interesting
  messages.  -- KIL]