Comparisons between Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama continue to be revealed. We now find out that Abraham Lincoln was possibly the first President to use emoticons! Read about it below and see proof of emoticon use in Lincoln’s speech.
Lincoln Emoticons
Just when you think there couldn’t possibly be another real or imagined link between Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln THIS comes along. Barack Obama is quite possibly our most technologically savvy President ever. Well, no quite possibly about it. He’s no doubt more into computers, blackberrys, email and all the technology available in this age of instant communication than any President that has come before him. Just look at how hard he has fought to keep his blackberry in spite of serious national security concerns over him doing so!
Now we find out that there is a possibility that Lincoln was WAY before his time as there is evidence that he may have been using emoticons as far back as 1862. That’s like, 100 years before there even were computers, much less emoticons. Woah. No wonder Obama picked him to pattern himself after.
There was an article in the New York Times yesterday that made a lengthy argument in favor of the theory that the NYT printed a speech given by Abraham Lincoln in 1862 and used emoticons. I suppose that means the New York Times was using emoticons back then rather than the President, but the point that it draws yet another comparison between the two Presidents still stands.
If you look at the printed text that I’ve included above you can clearly see the familiar wink emoticon. ;). There it is, a semicolon with a parenthesis, within the parenthesis surrounding the words, ‘applause and laughter’ about halfway through the text. Unmistakably a wink. Applause, laugh … wink.
Of course, its the only case of the wink emoticon that has been found to have been used in literally hundreds of documents that have been examined from that time period. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t mean what we believe it to mean.
January 20th, 2009 at 11:00 am
Are you serious? “Applause and laughter” was in parentheses and there was a semicolon there to punctuate. The same was done with the phrase “renewed applause” with a period within the parentheses to punctuate. The semicolon and parentheses it sits next to was NOT, I repeat, NOT a wink. If it were then he would have placed a parentheses before the phrase “applause and laughter” and not after, which would not have been correct.
You have got to be kidding me.
January 20th, 2009 at 11:17 am
How the fook did this end up in google’s top stories?!? This is the dumbest thing i’ve ever read
January 20th, 2009 at 11:40 am
Lincoln was a member and president of the Illinois Colonization Society and segregationist and wanted to remove Blacks from the WHITE U.S. in any way economically possible; Had Abe not been assassinated by John W Boothe he would have assigned them to desert Reservations like the Indians.
I seriously doubt Obama is in any way like Lincoln.
January 20th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
Susan Rae - yes, its a joke. Lighten up. Geezz