hovy@vaxa.isi.EDU.UUCP (08/17/87)
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]gately%resbld@ti-csl.CSNET ("Michael T. Gately") (08/20/87)
With referenc to TERMINAL TALK, another effective device for highlighting a portion of a message is _to_surround_it_with_underscores_. I use this when typing book references without a text formatter. Another interesting notation is the order of the characters in a serial interrobang. I feel that there is a definate difference between ?! and !?. The first would be appropriate when describing (with disbelief) a question someone asked. The second is used when questioning a statement someone made.
uucp@hjuxa.UUCP (08/21/87)
I can shed no light on most of Hovy's questions, but I think I can claim priority on the use of underscores as delimiters: He's reading _Moby Dick._ He says it's _very_ boring. An earlier format uses underscores throughout; e.g., I need a copy of _The_Art_of_Computer_Programming_, Volume 4. Personally I prefer *asterisks* for emphasis and _underscores_ for other applications of italics. By the way, recently my three-year-old son told me excitedly that there was a kitty on my home terminal. Actually it was a C-R (carriage-return) glyph, with the C slightly higher than the R and running into it like a cat's tail. Can anybody think of a use for such "kitties"? -- Col. G. L. Sicherman ...!ihnp4!odyssey!gls
gjerawlins@watdaisy.waterloo.EDU ("Gregory J.E. Rawlins") (09/07/87)
In article <8708240530.AA19550@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> gately%resbld@ti-csl.CSNET ("Michael T. Gately") writes: >Another interesting notation is the order of the >characters in a serial interrobang. I feel that there >is a definate difference between ?! and !?. The first >would be appropriate when describing (with disbelief) >a question someone asked. The second is used when >questioning a statement someone made. In chess annotations "!?" is used to indicate an interesting but dubious move and "?!" is used to indicate a dubious but interesting move. Chess also uses !,?,!!, and ??. greg. -- GJE Rawlins gjerawlins%watdaisy@waterloo.csnet gjerawlins@watdaisy.watersav> <in