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Original bulletin board thread in which ‘:-)’ was proposed

cs.cmu.edu

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Re: Original bulletin board thread in which ‘:-)’ was proposed

#141

Post by abz10 »

c0achmcguirk wrote: post #55
jaywunder wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does it represent? I doubt understand it

It's a woman on a pedestal, like the expression: "women should be placed upon a pedestal." The phrase is usually understood to mean that men should treat women with respect, treating them as if they are more important than themselves.

I also thought pedastal. I guess it has been a long time since I've seen a woman wear a skirt. But I think your interpretation of why is off. I was looking for something sexist (as per OP) so the pedestal fit that for me. I presumed it was an inside joke amoung guys. But since someone pointed out the skirt I know know I was reading into it incorrectly

Re: Original bulletin board thread in which ‘:-)’ was proposed

#142

Post by lifeformed »

kenbellows wrote: post #37
kbart wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Past what? Topics interesting to women? Though I agree that this emoticon is ugly and it took me some time to understand what it symbolizes.

Past the point where we thought that ideas should be or even can be segmented into those interesting to women vs those interesting to men, which is a rather silly idea rooted in gender unfounded stereotypes and possibly a bit of sexism.

But more specifically, that the default topic is those interesting to men, needing no special indicator.

Re: Original bulletin board thread in which ‘:-)’ was proposed

#144

Post by soylentcola »

jharger wrote: post #115
throwanem wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bicycles for women with different frames This one in particular I never quite grasped. I mean, there've been a couple times, when I stopped short and came off the seat and pedals, that I really wished , in an extremely immediate and visceral fashion, that my bike's top tube wasn't quite where it was. On the other hand, I suppose the "women's bike" design probably lacks something in rigidity by comparison, so I supp…

So I had heard that women's bikes were designed that way to allow room for riding in a dress. Apparently people still do this: https://letsgorideabike.com/2012/06/04/how-to-bicycling-in-a...

That's exactly what I've always been told. If you're wearing a skirt/dress, the bar on a guy's bike will push your skirt up and create a scandal :O

So "girls' bikes" have a dip in the bar so there's room for a skirt/dress. Still, I wonder if there's a reason they just didn't make all bikes like this to make it cheaper for the manufacturers.

I'd imagine the straight bar could offer more rigidity or I guess maybe it costs slightly more to make the curved version with a longer bar and the process of making the curve. If that's the case, I guess margin-shaving bike manufacturers only made as many of the curved model cycles as they had to in order to address the demand from skirt/dress-wearing customers.

Re: Original bulletin board thread in which ‘:-)’ was proposed

#145

Post by jcl »

TorKlingberg wrote: post #53
tetraodonpuffer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

would be interesting to know where that one started...

Probably Japan. ツ is a very common Japanese charterer pronounced "tsu". As wodenokoto said there is a whole separate history of Asian smileys that are right way up, with the face in the middle and various decorations on both sides. They did have the advantage of a larger set of characters from the start.

One example predating computers is "henohenomoheji", a face made out of Japanese hiragana, used as a generic face in children's art and crafts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henohenomoheji

Re: Original bulletin board thread in which ‘:-)’ was proposed

#146

Post by c0achmcguirk »

hueving wrote: post #125
c0achmcguirk wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that's a lot of downvotes. Mind telling me why?

Well first, that's not an expression that anyone uses. If there is one, it's the opposite of that. Also, your interpretation of that is incorrect. Putting something on a pedestal is bad. It's pretending that it's perfect. If you put a person on a pedestal, you remove their humanity and flaws and aren't treating them like a person.

Thanks for the insights, I've must have understood the expression differently.

I did find references to the contrary like [1] where the interpretation I've always had is expressed. Why are you so certain?

[1] http://www.city-data.com/forum/relationships/1064051-what-do...

Re: Original bulletin board thread in which ‘:-)’ was proposed

#147

Post by c0achmcguirk »

jnicholasp wrote: post #128
c0achmcguirk wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that's a lot of downvotes. Mind telling me why?

I didn't down vote you, and I have no special insight into why others have, but my guess would be that at least some of those votes were meant to indicate disagreement with your interpretation: I think more people see the equal sign as representing legs, rather than a pedestal. If I were to speculate further, I would suspect that some people are wary of interpretations of ambiguous texts that unnecessarily imply sexi…

Thanks for taking the time to share that.

Re: Original bulletin board thread in which ‘:-)’ was proposed

#148

Post by [deleted] »

jobigoud wrote: post #122
Aexian wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a college student, I use emoji constantly to communicate all sorts of abstract sentiments, but in my experience they can also be irritatingly ambiguous and highly dependent on cultural norms and interpretation. Take the thumbs up emoji - within my social circles, the exact same emoji can be interpreted both as a enthusiastic agreement ("Sure!") and also as a sarcastic affirmation ("Good for you."). It's often diff…

We need an emoji to represent sarcasm that we would put at the end of the message, like the use of "/s". And I think this would count as grammar.

[deleted]

Re: Original bulletin board thread in which ‘:-)’ was proposed

#149

Post by [deleted] »

jgw wrote: post #27

It makes me a bit of a luddite (and a heck of a curmudgeon), but it always makes me a little sad when good ol' ASCII smileys are rendered all fancy-like. There's something charming and hackerish about showing it as a 7-bit glyph. I think the Internet fundamentally changed when that happened. Tangentially-related, I can't fathom why someone would post YouTube videos of `telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl`.

[deleted]

Re: Original bulletin board thread in which ‘:-)’ was proposed

#150

Post by abecedarius »

benbreen wrote: post #98

Apropos is this debate about whether an intentional :) shows up in a 1648 poem: http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2014/04/15/emotico... Here's the verse: Tumble me down, and I will sit Upon my ruines (smiling yet :) I think that the article does a fairly convincing job of showing that this is just weird 17th century typography, but then again, there was enough experimentation with printing at the time that it…

Huh. That helps explain one I found from the 19th C.: https://www.flickr.com/photos/abecedarius/3054204291/ a little below middle: "... philosophy in small :)"
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