emoticon is a term that evolved in internet culture from mailing list and usenet users.

(something I've always wondered is how to pronounce the word. "emote-icons"?, "emohshicons"?)

During the early days, someone [anyone have more details here?] used the ASCII string :-) to indicate a smile.

LV According to http://news.com.com/2100-1023-957817.html , research was done to identify who, and when, the first emoticon was used. :-)

Re: History of "emoticons" try: http://www.fastcompany.com/launch/launch_feature/emoticon.html or Google for "Scott Fahlman" -- Dave Griffin

Since that time, many emoticons have evolved [someone want to put some urls here to emoticon encyclopedias - preferably freely distributable ones??]

In recent years, several of the graphical messaging clients have added a graphical touch - converting ascii strings typed by the users into some icon.

Tkchat recently added this functionality. Some of the emoticons it supports includes:

 :-( :^( :(              - cry!
 8-( 8^( 8( 8-| 8^| 8|   - growl
 LOL lol                 - Laugh Out Loud
 >:( >:-( >:^(           - mad
 :-o :^o :o :-O :^O :O   - surprise
 :-) :^) :)              - smile
 :-D :^D :D              - big smile
 <:-) <:^) <:)           - dorky smile
 8-) 8^) 8)              - smiley with glasses
 :-p :^p :p              - animated smiley with tongue
 ;/ ;-/ ;^/ :/ :-/ :^/ 8/ 8-/ 8^/  - smirk with glasses
 :-P :^P :P                - smiley with tongue, 2
 (: (^: (-:              - upside down
 ;-) ;^) ;)              - animated wink
 :-| :^} :8} :}          - blush
 |O| |o| |0|             - gone to eat
 zz zzz zzZ zZZ ZZZ ZZ   - gone to sleep
 LP  |_P                 - A reference to coffee/tea/beer/et cetera (the shape is similar to a cup).

---

BBH notes that versions as of 42 supports a /smile command (or /smiles /smiley /smileys) to display a window with all the emoticons & which ascii triggers them

---

[KDCinfo] - 2012-11-16 18:45:48

For sleep, I've always used: ...zzzZZZzzz...

---