:-) Turns 25

The very first emoticon, :-), turns 25 years old today. Linguistically, it was a watershed event in separating electronic language from the rest of written language. Without it, text speak, l33t speak, h4xx0r speak, and western and eastern forms of "smilies" never would have developed. It also marked the decline of written language to convey emotion and intent. There was no longer a need to choose from culturally approved words, phrases, or literary allusions to convey disdain and sarcasm. You could drily make a point, and denote its opposite meaning, or that it should be taken lightly, with a wink ;). Writing truly is an art, but as more people got online, the developed talent of a few was quickly drowned out by those much more comfortable with spoken conversation, where tones and gestures can convey much more in fewer uttered words, than if those uttered words were written down. Emoticons bridged that gap, and online "speech" has become its own subset of language. I look forward to the next "revolution" in language.