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Jonathan Swift's acerbic wit would pack a dangerous punch online. Just imagine the uproar if [SWIFT_EMAIL] posted "A Modest Proposal" in an AOL chat room today. "A young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled," the message would say; "and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout."

Young mothers would besiege the discussion boards. Student activists would go on the warpath. Matt Drudge would have a field day. And chat administrators would curse satirists everywhere.

Now imagine if Jonathan Swift had paired every brilliant turn of phrase and biting piece of satire with ; -) One look at the winking emoticon used to flag smart-ass email remarks, and ohhh, now I get it.

"It's true that Jonathan Swift and Mark Twain didn't need the smiley face to communicate effectively," says Carnegie Mellon professor Scott Fahlman. "But most of the people sending email and posting on news groups today are not Jonathan Swift or Mark Twain. They can't convey humor very well.

"All you need is one or two clueless people who don't get a joke to create an email response that dwarfs the original message. Certainly Twain had dissenters too, but his audience didn't have a printing press at its disposal. Today, readers can retaliate."

Why does Fahlman care so much about : -) and its literary reputation? Because Fahlman is the originator of the "emotional icon," or "emoticon" -- that international translator of irony and defuser of parody.

" 'Emoticon' is such a grotesque label," Fahlman says. "I prefer 'smiley.' "

Back in 1982, Fahlman was participating in a university bulletin board called "Opinion" when the smiley notion struck. In those early days of electronic communication, misunderstood sarcasm often sparked fierce disputes between students, and wisecracks too often prompted avalanches of response postings. Fahlman was annoyed, so he suggested using visual clues to communicate tone of voice.

While working on his PhD at MIT in the late 1970s, Fahlman contributed to bulletin boards where posters wrote "joke" after every wisecrack or jibe. He thought that he could do better. He tilted his head to the right and : -) was born.

Nineteen years later, more than 2,000 emoticons have infiltrated popular culture through books (Smileys), browsers (Emoticons), and nearly every correspondence with coworkers under the age of 25. There's even an agency devoted to bringing social equality and civil rights to "leftwise emoticons," such as (- : and < - ;

"Until ... people and emoticons become more tolerant, analysts expect emoticon violence and segregation to continue," says the farcical Emoticon News Bureau. What has the world come to?

It's come to : - F (bucktoothed vampire with one tooth missing) and % \ v (Picasso). It seems Fahlman's smiley suggestion has spawned a unique lexicon used by many but appreciated by few.

Fahlman has stared : -) in the eyes for nearly 20 years, and still hasn't grown tired of peppering it throughout emails and devising new, more obscure variations on the original. At the end of every email he sends, Fahlman includes a "mood" rating that usually reads : -) (He only uses : - (when making customer-service complaints.)