Earliest Emoticons? These Contenders Will Make You :-) (PHOTO)

Earliest Emoticons? These Contenders Will Make You :-)

We at HuffPost Good News can appreciate a well-executed emoticon.

Last week the QI Elves, who gather interesting facts for the BBC, tweeted a photo of what might be the earliest emoticons -- created in a time before computers.

As the New York Times notes, it's unclear when the first emoticon actually appeared:

A historical newspaper specialist at the digital archival company Proquest believes he has found an example of a sideways winking smiley face embedded in The New York Times transcript of an 1862 speech given by President Lincoln. Other historians are not so sure, saying the semicolon alongside a closed parenthesis is either a mistake or a misinterpretation of something that is perfectly grammatical for that era.

If you're interested, you can check out the full article on the debate here.

What's your favorite smiley face?

Before You Go

Bev Holzrichter, "The Internet is my hero, it saved my life"

The Internet Saved My Life

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