:-)

If you've ever groaned after opening an email message from a friend only to find it punctuated with an emoticon, then you can blame Carnegie Mellon, where the symbol was invented 25 years ago by computer scientist Scott Fahlman. I jest, of course, but the emoticon is often vital for a medium of communication in which the tone of a message is notoriously hard to interpret. No doubt emoticons such as ;-), :-) and :-( have saved many a relationship--and probably quite a few jobs, as well.

Jonathan Potts