Does
1648 Poem Contain the
World's First Emoticon? Probably **t
Though emoticons have become widely popular in the Internet era, they did exist much earlier — most definitely as early as the
19th century
Image: Robert Herrick
**w, a new discovery from a poetry fan reveals that the smiley may date as early as 1648, when it appeared in a
Poem called "To Fortune" by Robert Herrick. Found by
Levi Stahl, publicity manager for the University of Chicago Press, and
First reported by
The Atlantic, the
Poem has a smiley face next to the words "smiling yet."
See also:
A Brief History of the Emoticon
It could, of course, be a typo, but it could also be deliberate — after all, the concept of the smiley is pretty simple and could easily be as old as typography itself. However, this doesn't seem to be the case here
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