Short Review
and Recommendation
Smileys
By David W. Sanderson
March 1993
ISBN: 1-56592-041-4
93 pages, $7.95 US, $11.95 CA, £5.50 UK
a good book. :) :) :) of 5
The scope of this book is impressive. It includes an incredible number of ASCII smileys. It also provides some valuable perspective as well as a very extensive dictionary in which you can look up smileys.
I wanted this book for a long time before I got it. I was not disappointed.
If you found this review, likely you would enjoy this book and very possibly even find it useful. This book would be a fun present for any geek, and, for that matter, for anyone who does email or instant messaging or most any other form of on-line communication.
However that said, I think it's time for a second edition.
For more detail, see my longer review.
George Woolley of Oakland.pm
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Miscellaneous
Overall Structure
There are three major parts in the book
- 9 Q&As (13 pages)
- 5 chapters (32 pages)
- 1 dictionary (42 pages)
That covers most, but not all, of the book.
There is at least one Q&A (question and answer) before and after each chapter. All the Q&As and chapters precede the dictionary.
Notes:
- The book does not use the designation chapter.
- The book calls what I call the dictionary "Reference".
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Chapters
- Style & Usage e.g. ;-) (crying)
- Smiley Caricatures e.g. =|:-) (Lincoln)
- Smiley Animals e.g. =====:} (snake)
- Specialized Smileys e.g. :* (kisses)
- Fun with Smileys e.g. >[] (watching TV)
Notes:
- The book does not designate anything as a chapter.
- By Chapter I mean a coherent section that begins with a page heading, is not a Q&A, and comes before the Dictionary.
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Major Q&As
- What is a smiley?
- Why are smileys sideways?
- Why use smileys?
- Where do people use smileys?
- People have communicated for centuries without resorting to smileys. What makes writing e-mail messages different?
- How frequently should I use smileys?
- Are smileys used outside of e-mail and bulletin boards?
- Since smileys contain punctuation marks, how do I mix them with the punctuation I use in my sentences?
- What about parenthetical text?
Notes:
- By major question here, I mean a top of the page question which is marked as a question.
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Motto
"Express Yourself Sideways"
Dictionary Collating Sequence
There are over 800 smileys defined in the dictionary.
Here's the collating sequence used to order the dictionary.
a blank space
!"#$%'()*+-./
0123456789
:;<=>?@
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
[\]^_`
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
{|}~
Notes:
- Hm, is this intuitive to you?
- Please feel free to reframe the above question, if you wish.
- Well, it's precise, anyway.
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Smileys I Use the Most
:) (happy) :( (sad)
Note:
- Hey, I'm a simple guy.
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Some Smileys I Just Learned
:------) (liar)
:-X (a big wet kiss)
:* (kisses)
[] (hugs)
) (the Cheshire cat)
( (unhappy Cheshire cat)
(invisible smiley)
Note:
- Yep, simple.
- I think I have a use for all of these.
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Some of My Variants
;------) (liar with sense of humor)
[ (pouting Cheshire cat)
(Cheshire cat after disappearing)
Note:
- Observe that most sentences in the longer review are followed by a disappeared Cheshire cat smiley.
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Some Facial Parts
eyes: : ; ' 8 @ O
noses: - < + ------
mouths: ) ( ] [ } { : x X
Notes:
- The above is just for sideways ASCII smileys.
- You could generate simple smileys using one of each of the above.
- Such a program would be able to generate over 200 different smileys.
- And then perhaps someone will write (or has already written?) a simple generative grammar for smileys.
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A Few Japanese Facemarks
(^o^) (happy) (_o_) (sorry) (;_;) (weeping)
Notes:
- They vary in size unlike the few included here.
- There are some of these in the book, but not many.
- None of the above occur in the book.
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Longer Review
Contents
- The Title, Subtitle and Cover
- About the Reviewer
- The Chapters
- The Questions
- The Dictionary
- And There's More
- Final Thoughts
Note:
- Published by O'Reilly.
- Click on the cover image to see the catalog entry.
Cover, Title and Subtitle
title: The title of this book is "Smiley's". Smileys here are short sequences of characters used to express feelings. They are sometimes called emoticons.
The book includes all the ASCII smileys I normally use or encounter plus an incredible number more.
The book does not mention graphic (i.e. pictorial, not just characters) emoticons which, through the years, have become a favorite among many. The book is also very limited in its coverage of Japanese facemarks. My guess is that back when it was published this book was close to exhaustive in it's coverage. Moreover it's apparently held up amazingly well. But it's been more than 10 years!
The word "smileys" is ambiguous in current usage. For example:
- Sometimes the word is used very broadly and encompasses not only sideways ASCII emoticons (including ones that aren't smiling) but also Japanese facemarks and all graphic emoticons.
- Sometimes "smileys" refers just to sideways ASCII emoticons.
subtitle: The subtitle is "Noah Webster of Smileys". This does convey the extensive number of Smileys that are defined.
However, a bit less than 1/2 the book consists of dictionary entries. Much more is provided here than I would expect from a dictionary.
cover: If practical, a new cover would be appreciated too.
IMO, the cover suggests that the book is primarily just a bunch of entries about specific smileys. Valuable, but I believe the questions and answers, especially, go well beyond this. One of the strong points of the book is that it provides perspective on smileys. IMO both the subtitle and the cover sell the book short.
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About the Reviewer
It's only fairly recently that I've started using smileys. I think smiley's are kool. I write a lot of email and create a lot of web pages. Smiley's have been a welcome additional means of expression.
However, I hardly use any smileys other than :) and :( at all. :( Perhaps I will now. :) ;------)
I write a lot of book reviews. I've settled on using smileys as my summary measure. I rate a good book as follows:
- :) :) :) of 5
I have a lot of O'Reilly technology books. Generally, I think O'Reilly's books rock.
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The Chapters
Each of what I call chapters gathers together smileys that relate to some theme. This is a fun and useful approach.
One kind of smiley that is missing from the chapters and occurs only sparsely in the dictionary is Japanese facemarks. No mention at all is made of graphic emoticons which have become quite prevalent. Hey, I'm no expert on smileys. I wonder what else has changed since 1993 when the book was published.
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Questions & Answers
One of the areas of the book that really shines is the questions and answers. Questions range from deep questions such as
- "What is a smiley?"
- "Why are smileys sideways?"
to down to earth questions such as
- how to mix smileys with punctuation.
The questions and answers are both fun and informative. Often they provide valuable perspective.
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The Dictionary
The dictionary contains a wealth of ASCII smileys. I had no idea there were so many. And I appreciate that there is a rigorous way to find a particular smiley by it's "spelling". Hey, the collating scheme is explicitly stated before the entries.
Still I'm hoping that there is some more intuitive (but equally rigorous) sequence that could be used. Most people I know don't have ASCII sort order ingrained in them. Check out the collating sequence if you wish. It's workable, but not very user friendly, IMO.
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And There's More
In addition to the above, there's
- a man page for a freeware smiley program the author wrote.
- the results of a smiley contest
The author says you can download the program from the net. It's been a long time since he said that. But if you are programmer, it might be fun to write the program anyway.
Looking at the winning smiley and the 20 runnerup in the contest, may well lead you to create some smileys of your own.
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Final Thoughts
The Smiley book was published in 1993. Considering how much has changed in the intervening years, it's amazing how well the book holds up. Or does it? The truth is that I don't know in many respects.
What is clear to me is that this is a fun and useful book, whatever it's shortcomings. The "Smileys" book would make a wonderful small present for most any geek or anyone who does email or the like. It's a fun book to browse or just leave lying around too.
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Note:
- Published by O'Reilly.
- Click on the cover image to see the catalog entry.
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ASCII Llama
...:::::::__
...::: (o |/_
(_ |_/
(....... |
\ |
| |
| |
| |
| | ___________________________
| \__/ \
| \/////
| //
| ///
| //
\ //
| |
\ /\ |
| /// \ |
///////////////// \ /
/////////////// \ /
/ / \ | // \ /
| | | | | /
| | | | \ \
| | | | \ \
| | | | / /
| / \ | / /
| | | | / /
| | | | / /
| | | | / /
| | | | / /
=|_| =|_| =/_/
Notes:
- Why is there a llama here?
- This ASCII image of a llama is included here because -- I felt like putting it here.
- Let me know if you think of a good reason why the llama is here.
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