"Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech" (First Amendment)

.....The comments on the previous posting are very interesting to me because I spent half a lifetime studying the relationships of speech and writing.  Eons ago the attempt to imitate the spoken word was written on stone--and animals were used to capture the spoken word.  Perhaps it was a Pharaoh's speech written for the ages--something akin to the Gettysburg Address. 

....."Egyptian hieroglyphics can be read now because of the translation of the Rosetta Stone. The Rosetta Stone is an ancient Egyptian  stele inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The decree appears in three scripts: the upper text is Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle portion Demotic script, and the lowest Ancient Greek. Because it presents essentially the same text in all three scripts (with some minor differences between them), it provided the key to modern Egyptian hierogliphs."  (from Wikopedia)

.....So, it seems to me that what is now called an "emoticon" is actually a kind of hieroglyph--though the emoticon really is not a word as is a hieroglyph; it is mostly used to indicate tone, as Joel has pointed out in his comment.  I'll stick to hieroglyphs and demotics and three cheers for King Ptolemy the Fifth.

.....Speaking of speech, I spoke to RH+ yesterday (See? I'm trying to make a literary transition from the prior discussion of speech) and told her that I would like to get her a "memento" of our 30th Anniversary, so we drove to the Town Center Mall in Boca in order to obtain a proper memento--something to remember me by.  I don't think I will make our 40th.  Fortunately we found that there was a scooter to be had in exchange for a driver's license at the information counter. There is just so far that I can walk with my walker.  Anyway, to shorten this story, we went into Mayor's Jewelry store and I bought her a diamond ring; of course you would need a magnifying glass in order to see the diamond.  However, although I never got her an engagement ring, this ring, remember, is a "memento".  She is to wear it on the finger she uses to inform me of her displeasure at times. The finger, itself, is a kind of emoticon. But at least this particular finger will sparkle.