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Emoticon. It is a sideways smiley face. Just like this . This emoticon is commonly present in chat, email, and even in texting.

This 3-character emoticon was invented by a research professor in Carnegie Mellon University at Pittsburgh, PA.

A brief history. In the early 80s, the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon was utilizing technology for their bulletin board. And they were really making use of it. Some posts were humorous (or it can be an attempted humor) but few of the readers failed to understand the joke. On one of their meetings, various joke markers were suggested, and in the middle of their discussion Fahlman thought about the idea and suggested that a series of these three characters can be a great solution. Then, he also added that the use of can be utilized for serous matters or sad emotion. It was caught on rapidly around the campus and spread to other colleges and universities.

Few months later, everyone begins to see different faces of smiley. But remains the original version of Scott.