November 25, 2009
Late-breaking news: Nabokov never heard of the parenthesis
by Dennis Johnson
Did Vladimir Nobokov invent the emoticon? MobyLives recently stumbled upon this exchange from a 1969 interview with the New York Times (and included in the collection Strong Opinions) in which the great author says:
How do you rank yourself among writers (living) and of the immediate past?
I often think there should exist a special typographical sign for a smile– some sort of concave mark, a supine round bracket, which I would now like to trace in reply to your question.
Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.