Editing Emoticon (section)

==History==
===Different uses of text characters (pre-1981)===
[[File:Poire typo..JPG|thumb|right|Cover of the French magazine ''[[Le Charivari]]'', text of a legal ruling against it in the shape of a [[pear]], 1834]]

In 1648, poet [[Robert Herrick (poet)|Robert Herrick]] wrote, "Tumble me down, and I will sit Upon my ruins, (smiling yet:)." Herrick's work predated any other recorded use of [[bracket]]s as a smiling face by around 200 years. However, experts doubted the inclusion of the [[Colon (punctuation)|colon]] in the poem was deliberate and if it was meant to represent a smiling face. English professor Alan Jacobs argued that "punctuation, in general, was unsettled in the seventeenth century ... Herrick was unlikely to have consistent punctuational practices himself, and even if he did he couldn't expect either his printers or his readers to share them."<ref name="Madrigal">{{cite web |last1=Madrigal |first1=Alexis C. |title=The First Emoticon May have appeared in 1648 |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/04/the-first-emoticon-may-have-appeared-in-1648/360622/ |work=[[The Atlantic]] |date=April 14, 2014 |url-access=limited}}</ref> 17th century typography practice often placed colons and semicolons within parentheses, including 14 instances of "{{big|:)}}" in [[Richard Baxter]]'s 1653 ''Plain Scripture Proof of Infants Church-membership and Baptism''.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Zimmer |first=Ben |date=2014-04-15 |title=Sorry, That's Not an Emoticon in a 1648 Poem :( |url=https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/04/emoticon-robert-herrick-s-17th-century-poem-to-fortune-does-not-contain-a-smiley-face.html |access-date=2024-06-05 |website=Slate}}</ref>

Precursors to modern emoticons have existed since the 19th century.{{r|Evans|Long|Giannoulis}} The ''National Telegraphic Review and Operators Guide'' in April 1857 documented the use of the number 73 in [[Morse code]] to express "love and kisses"<ref name="Hey & Pápay">{{cite book |last1=Hey |first1=Tony |last2=Pápay |first2=Gyuri |title=The Computing Universe: A Journey through a Revolution |date=2014 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-316-12322-5 |page=241}}</ref> (later reduced to the more formal "[[best regards]]"). ''Dodge's Manual'' in 1908 documented the reintroduction of "love and kisses" as the number 88. New Zealand academics Joan Gajadhar and John Green comment that both [[Morse code abbreviations]] are more succinct than modern abbreviations such as [[LOL (Internet slang)|LOL]].<ref name="Gajadhar">{{cite journal |first1=Joan |last1=Gajadhar |first2=John |last2=Green |title=The Importance of Nonverbal Elements in Online Chat |year=2005 |journal=EDUCAUSE Quarterly |volume=28 |issue=4 |pages=63–64 |issn=1528-5324 |url=https://er.educause.edu/~/media/files/articles/2005/10/eqm05411.pdf}}</ref>

[[File:Alleged use of emoticon, 1862-08-07.jpg|thumb|left|Transcript of [[Abraham Lincoln]]'s speech in 1862]]
The transcript of one of [[Abraham Lincoln]]'s speeches in 1862 recorded the audience's reaction as: "(applause and laughter ;)".<ref name="Evans">{{cite book |last1=Evans |first1=Vyvyan |title=The Emoji Code: The Linguistics Behind Smiley Faces and Scaredy Cats |date=2017 |publisher=Picador |location=New York |isbn=978-1-250-12906-2 |pages=149–150}}</ref><ref name="Houston">{{cite news |last1=Houston |first1=Keith |title=Something to Smile About |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304213904579093661814158946 |work=The Wall Street Journal |date=28 September 2013 |issn=0099-9660 |url-access=subscription |page=C3}}</ref> There has been some debate whether the glyph in Lincoln's speech was a [[typo]], a legitimate punctuation construct or the first emoticon.<ref>{{cite news |last=Lee |first=Jennifer |url=http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/hfo-emoticon/ |work=The New York Times |title=Is That an Emoticon in 1862? |date=January 19, 2009 |department=City Room |url-access=limited}}</ref> Linguist Philip Seargeant argues that it was a simple [[typesetting]] error.{{r|Seargeant}}

[[File:Emotikony-kurjer-warszawski-1881-tekst.png|thumb|right|"Typographical art" published in the March 5, 1881, issue of ''Kurjer Warszawski'']]
[[File:Emoticons Puck 1881.png|thumb|Emoticons in the satirical magazine ''[[Puck (magazine)|Puck]]'' on March 30, 1881]]
Before March 1881, the examples of "typographical art" appeared in at least three newspaper articles, including ''[[Kurier Warszawski|Kurjer warszawski]]'' (published in [[Warsaw]]) from March 5, 1881, using punctuation to represent the emotions of joy, melancholy, indifference and astonishment.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://polona.pl/item/kurjer-warszawski-r-61-nr-51-5-marca-1881,MjA0ODAxODg/4/#info:metadata | title=Polona }}</ref>
{{Clear left|left}}[[File:Emoticons-Telegraphische Zeichenkunst.jpg|thumb|{{lang|de|Telegraphische Zeichenkunst}} in the German {{lang|de|Deutsche Postzeitung}}, November 16, 1896<ref>''Telegraphische Zeichenkunst''. ''Deutschen Postzeitung'', Vol. VII. (No. 22), 1896-11-16, p. 497)</ref>]]In a 1912 essay titled "For Brevity and Clarity", American author [[Ambrose Bierce]] suggested facetiously{{r|Evans|Houston}} that a bracket could be used to represent a smiling face, proposing "an improvement in punctuation" with which writers could convey ''[[wikt:cachinnation|cachinnation]]'', loud or immoderate laughter: "it is written thus&nbsp;‿ and presents a smiling mouth. It is to be appended, with the full stop, to every jocular or ironical sentence".{{r|Evans}}<ref name="Bierce">{{cite book |first=Ambrose |last=Bierce |chapter=For Brevity and Clarity |title=The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, XI: Antepenultimata |year=1912 |publisher=The Neale Publishing Company |pages=386–387 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3nEcAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA387}}</ref> In a 1936 ''[[Harvard Lampoon]]'' article, writer Alan Gregg proposed combining brackets with various other [[punctuation mark]]s to represent various moods. Brackets were used for the sides of the mouth or cheeks, with other punctuation used between the brackets to display various emotions: {{big|(-)}} for a smile, {{nowrap|{{big|(--)}}}} (showing more "teeth") for laughter, {{big|(#)}} for a frown and {{big|(*)}} for a [[wink]].{{r|Evans}}<ref>The Harvard Lampoon, Vol. 112 No. 1, September 16, 1936, pp. 30–31. {{issn|0017-8098}}</ref> An instance of text characters representing a sideways smiling and frowning face could be found in the ''[[New York Herald Tribune]]'' on March 10, 1953, promoting the film ''Lili'' starring [[Leslie Caron]].<ref>New York Herald Tribune, 1953-03-10, p. 20, cols. 4–6.<!--
Today

You'll laugh :)
You'll cry :(
You'll love [Heart-shaped face]
_Lili_ --></ref>

The September 1962 issue of [[Mad (magazine)|''MAD'' magazine]] included an article titled "Typewri-toons". The piece, featuring typewriter-generated artwork credited to "Royal Portable", was entirely made up of repurposed typography, including a capital letter P having a bigger 'bust' than a capital I, a lowercase b and d discussing their pregnancies, an [[asterisk]] on top of a letter to indicate the letter had just come inside from snowfall, and a classroom of lowercase n's interrupted by a lowercase h "raising its hand".<ref>''MAD'' Magazine No. 73, September 1962, pp. 36–37. {{ISSN|0024-9319}}</ref> A further example attributed to a ''[[The Baltimore Sun|Baltimore Sunday Sun]]'' columnist appeared in a 1967 article in ''[[Reader's Digest]]'', using a [[dash]] and [[right bracket]] to represent a [[Tongue in cheek|tongue in one's cheek]]: {{big|—}}).{{r|Evans|Houston}}<ref name="Mikkelson">{{cite web |last=Mikkelson |first=David |url=http://www.snopes.com/fact-check/glyph-notes/ |title=Fact Check: Emoticon (Smiley) Origin |website=Snopes |date=20 September 2007}}</ref> Prefiguring the modern "smiley" emoticon,{{r|Evans|Seargeant}} writer [[Vladimir Nabokov]] told an interviewer from ''[[The New York Times]]'' in 1969, "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."<ref name="Nabokov">{{cite book |last=Nabokov |first=Vladimir |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780679726098 |title=Strong Opinions |publisher=Vintage Books |year=1990 |isbn=978-0-679-72609-8 |edition=1st Vintage international |location=New York |page=134 |oclc=1035656350 |url-access=registration}}</ref>

In the 1970s, the [[PLATO IV]] computer system was launched. It was one of the first computers used throughout educational and professional institutions, but rarely used in a residential setting.<ref name="vice">{{cite web |last1=Smith |first1=Ernie |title=The Greatest Computer Network You've Never Heard Of |date=November 13, 2017 |url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-greatest-computer-network-youve-never-heard-of/ |publisher=[[Vice (magazine)|Vice]]}}</ref> On the computer system, a student at the [[University of Illinois]] developed pictograms that resembled different smiling faces. [[Mary Kalantzis]] and [[Bill Cope (academic)|Bill Cope]] stated this likely took place in 1972, and they claimed these to be the first emoticons.<ref name="Kalantzis">{{cite book |last1=Kalantzis |first1=Mary |last2=Cope |first2=Bill |title=Adding Sense: Context and Interest in a Grammar of Multimodal Meaning |date=2020 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-49534-9 |page=33}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Cope |first1=Bill |last2=Kalantzis |first2=Mary |title=A Little History of e-Learning |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351400910 |via=ResearchGate |access-date=26 October 2021}}</ref>

===ASCII emoticons use in digital communication (1982–mid-1990s)===
Carnegie Mellon computer scientist [[Scott Fahlman]] is generally credited with the invention of the digital text-based emoticon in 1982.<ref name="Seargeant">{{cite book |last1=Seargeant |first1=Philip |title=The Emoji Revolution: How Technology is Shaping the Future of Communication |date=2019 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-49664-3 |pages=45–46 |quote=The history of emoticons conventionally begins with the computer scientist Scott Fahlman who, in 1982, combined a colon, a hyphen and a round bracket as a way of indicating that a given statement was meant as a joke.}}</ref><ref name="Doliashvili">{{cite book |last1=Doliashvili |first1=Mariam |last2=Ogawa |first2=Michael-Brian C. |last3=Crosby |first3=Martha E. |editor1-last=Schmorrow |editor1-first=Dylan D. |editor2-last=Fidopiastis |editor2-first=Cali M. |title=Augmented Cognition. Theoretical and Technological Approaches |series=Lecture Notes in Computer Science |volume=12196 |publisher=Springer Nature |isbn=978-3-030-50353-6 |date=2020 |page=26 |doi=10.1007/978-3-030-50353-6_2 |s2cid=220551348 |chapter=Understanding Challenges Presented Using Emojis as a Form of Augmented Communication |quote=Scott Fahlman, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, was credited with popularizing early text-based emoticons in 1982}}</ref><ref name="Long">{{cite magazine |last1=Long |first1=Tony |title=Sept. 19, 1982: Can't You Take a Joke? :-) |url=https://www.wired.com/2008/09/dayintech-0919/ |magazine=Wired |date=19 September 2008 |url-access=limited |quote=Fahlman became the acknowledged originator of the ASCII-based emoticon.}}</ref> The use of [[ASCII]] symbols, a standard set of codes representing typographical marks, was essential to allow the symbols to be displayed on any computer.<ref name="Veszelszki">{{cite book |last1=Veszelszki |first1=Ágnes |title=Digilect: The Impact of Infocommunication Technology on Language |date=2017 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |location=Berlin |isbn=978-3-11-049911-7 |pages=131–132}}</ref> In Carnegie Mellon's [[bulletin board system]], Fahlman proposed colon–[[hyphen]]–right bracket {{code|:-)}} as a label for "attempted humor" to try to solve the difficulty of conveying [[Humour|humor]] or [[sarcasm]] in plain text.<ref name="Stanton">{{cite book |last1=Stanton |first1=Andrea L. |editor1-last=Benski |editor1-first=Tova |editor2-last=Fisher |editor2-first=Eran |title=Internet and Emotions |date=2014 |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |isbn=978-0-415-81944-2 |page=84 |chapter=Islamic Emoticons: Pious Sociability and Community Building in Online Muslim Communities.}}</ref>{{r|Long}} Fahlman sent the following message{{efn|The transcript of the conversation between several computer scientists, including [[David Touretzky]], [[Guy L. Steele Jr.|Guy Steele]] and [[Jaime Carbonell]],<ref name="Fahlman">{{cite web |last=Fahlman |first=Scott |url=https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~sef/Orig-Smiley.htm |title=Original Bboard Thread in which :-) was proposed |website=cs.cmu.edu |access-date=March 22, 2018}}</ref> was believed lost before it was recovered 20 years later from old backup tapes.{{r|Long}}}} after an incident where a humorous warning about a [[Mercury (element)|mercury]] spill in an elevator was misunderstood as serious:{{r|Houston|Seargeant}}<ref name="Garber">{{cite web |last1=Garber |first1=Megan |title=) or :-)? Some Highly Scientific Data |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/emoticon-smileys-some-highly-scientific-data/373086/ |work=The Atlantic |date=June 19, 2014 |url-access=limited}}</ref>

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<pre style="border: 0px;">
19-Sep-82 11:44    Scott E  Fahlman             :-)
From: Scott E  Fahlman <Fahlman at Cmu-20c>
 
I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:
        
:-)
        
Read it sideways.  Actually, it is probably more economical to mark
things that are NOT jokes, given current trends.  For this, use
        
:-(
</pre>

Within a few months, the smiley had spread to the [[ARPANET]]<ref>{{cite newsgroup |title=Notes{{dash}}Communications Breakthrough |first=James |last=Morris |date=October 10, 1982 |newsgroup=net.works |url=https://groups.google.com/group/net.works/browse_thread/thread/773cc0618cfd7d83q=Scott+Fahlman#35a7598e05d9a09b |access-date=December 18, 2008}}{{Dead link|date=October 2021}}</ref>{{Primary source inline|date=October 2021}} and [[Usenet]].<ref>{{cite newsgroup |title=How to keep from being misunderstood on the net |first=Curtis |last=Jackson |date=December 3, 1982 |newsgroup=net.news |url=https://groups.google.com/group/net.news/browse_thread/thread/b72c333ced0d3adc/e008ed19e251f9ee?#e008ed19e251f9ee |access-date=December 17, 2008}}</ref>{{Primary source inline|date=October 2021}} Other suggestions on the forum included an [[asterisk]] {{code|*}} and an [[ampersand]] {{code|&}}, the latter meant to represent a person doubled over in laughter,<ref name="Hitt">{{cite news |last1=Hitt |first1=Tarpley |title=The Inventor of the Emoticon Tells All: 'I've Created a Virus' |url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-inventor-of-the-emoticon-tells-all-ive-created-a-virus |work=The Daily Beast |date=17 July 2020 |url-access=limited}}</ref>{{r|Garber}} as well as a [[percent sign]] {{code|%}} and a [[Octothorpe|pound sign]] {{code|#}}.<ref name="Baron">{{cite book |last1=Baron |first1=Naomi |editor1-last=Vincent |editor1-first=Jane |editor2-last=Fortunati |editor2-first=Leopoldina |title=Electronic Emotion: The Mediation of Emotion via Information and Communication Technologies |date=2009 |publisher=Peter Lang |location=Bern |isbn=978-3-03911-866-3 |page=112 |chapter=The myth of impoverished signal: Dispelling the spoken-language fallacy for emoticons in online communication.}}</ref> Scott Fahlman suggested that not only could his emoticon communicate [[emotion]], but also replace language.<ref name="Stanton" /> Since the 1990s, emoticons (colon, hyphen and bracket) have become integral to digital communications,<ref name="Giannoulis">{{cite book |editor1-last=Giannoulis |editor1-first=Elena |editor2-last=Wilde |editor2-first=Lukas R. A. |title=Emoticons, ''Kaomoji'', and Emoji: The Transformation of Communication in the Digital Age |date=2019 |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |isbn=978-0-429-95884-7 |chapter=Emoticons, Kaomoji, and Emoji: The Transformation of Communication in the Digital Age <!--Chapter and book title are the same--> |quote=The most commonly used emoticons, the 'smileys', have since become an integral part of digital communication.}}{{Page needed|date=October 2021}}</ref> and have inspired a variety of other emoticons,{{r|Long}}{{sfn|Evans|2017|pp=151–152}} including the "winking" face using a [[semicolon]] {{code|;-)}},<ref name="Turns 25">{{cite news |title=:-) turns 25 <!--Smiley is part of title--> |agency=Associated Press |date=September 20, 2007 |url=http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/09/18/emoticon.anniversary.ap/index.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071012051803/http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/09/18/emoticon.anniversary.ap/index.html |archive-date=October 12, 2007 |website=CNN.com}}</ref> {{code|XD}}, a representation of the [[Face with Tears of Joy emoji]] and the acronym [[LOL]].{{sfn|Seargeant|2019|p=47}}

In 1996, [[The Smiley Company]] was established by Nicolas Loufrani and his father Franklin as a way of commercializing the [[smiley]] trademark. As part of this, The Smiley Dictionary website focused on ASCII emoticons, where a catalogue was made of them. Many other people did similar to Loufrani from 1995 onwards, including David Sanderson creating the book ''Smileys'' in 1997. James Marshall also hosted an online collection of ASCII emoticons that he completed in 2008.{{sfn|Seargeant|2019|p=47}}

A researcher at [[Stanford University]] surveyed the emoticons used in four million [[Twitter]] messages and found that the smiling emoticon without a hyphen "nose" {{code|:)}} was much more common than the original version with the hyphen {{code|:-)}}. Linguist [[Vyvyan Evans]] argues that this represents a shift in usage by younger users as a form of ''[[covert prestige]]'': rejecting a standard usage in order to demonstrate in-group membership.{{sfn|Evans|2017|pp=152–154}}

===Graphical emoticons and other developments (1990s–present)===
Loufrani began to use the basic text designs and turned them into graphical representations. They are now known as graphical emoticons. His designs were registered at the [[United States Copyright Office]] in 1997 and appeared online as [[GIF|GIF files]] in 1998.<ref name=light>{{cite web |url=http://www.thelightmag.com/preferences-changes-in-social-media-marketingroberta-b-turner/ |title=Emoji Users Are Shaping The Future Of Messaging |first=Rene |last=Mahfood |date=2016 |work=The Light Magazine |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170805221736/http://www.thelightmag.com/preferences-changes-in-social-media-marketingroberta-b-turner/ |archive-date=August 5, 2017 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.europe1.fr/societe/avec-le-smiley-on-arrive-a-decontracter-tout-le-monde-2662759 |title=Avec le smiley, 'on arrive à décontracter tout le monde' |trans-title=With the smiley, 'we get to relax everybody' |date=February 4, 2016 |website=Europe 1 |language=fr |access-date=July 16, 2017 |archive-date=August 5, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170805222619/http://www.europe1.fr/societe/avec-le-smiley-on-arrive-a-decontracter-tout-le-monde-2662759 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.newstalk.com/Emojis-World-Emoji-Day-history-of-emoji-Ireland-Nicolas-Loufrani-Vyv-Evans |title=A picture paints a thousand words: Today is World Emoji Day |first=Jack |last=Quann |date=July 17, 2015 |website=newstalk.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150811013424/http://www.newstalk.com/Emojis-World-Emoji-Day-history-of-emoji-Ireland-Nicolas-Loufrani-Vyv-Evans |archive-date=August 11, 2015 |url-status=dead}}</ref> For ASCII emoticons that did not exist to convert into graphical form, Loufrani also backward engineered new ASCII emoticons from the graphical versions he created. These were the first graphical representations of ASCII emoticons.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.digit.in/features/general/emoting-out-loud-the-origin-of-emojis-31252.html |title=Emoting Out Loud: The Origin of Emojis |first=Souvik |last=Das |date=August 4, 2016 |website=Digit}}</ref> He published his Smiley icons as well as emoticons created by others, along with their ASCII versions, in an online Smiley Dictionary in 2001.<ref name=light /> This dictionary included 640 different smiley icons<ref>{{cite web |last1=Hooks |first1=Matheus |title=The Untold Story Behind the Emoji Phenomeon |date=March 10, 2022 |url=https://www.hooksmagazine.com/post/silver-screen-the-untold-story-behind-the-emoji-phenomenon |publisher=Hooks magazine}}</ref><ref name="Hervez">{{cite news |url=http://www.leparisien.fr/economie/business/qui-a-invente-le-smiley-son-histoire-va-vous-surprendre-09-05-2016-5777881.php |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190510020859/http://www.leparisien.fr/economie/business/qui-a-invente-le-smiley-son-histoire-va-vous-surprendre-09-05-2016-5777881.php |archive-date=10 May 2019 |title=Qui a inventé le Smiley ? Son histoire va vous surprendre... |trans-title=Who invented the Smiley? Its history will surprise you... |first=Marc |last=Hervez |date=May 9, 2016 |newspaper=Le Parisien |language=fr}}</ref> and was published as a book called ''Dico Smileys'' in 2002.<ref name=light /><ref name=semiotics>{{cite book |title=The Semiotics of Emoji: The Rise of Visual Language in the Age of the Internet |first=Marcel |last=Danesi |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |date=2016 |isbn=978-1-4742-8200-0}}{{page needed|date=October 2021}}</ref> In 2017, British magazine ''The Drum'' referred to Loufrani as the "godfather of the emoji" for his work in the field.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Deighton |first1=Katie |title=Creative The Smiley Company Emoji |url=https://www.thedrum.com/news/2017/07/24/smiley-s-ceo-wants-turn-the-emoji-s-godfather-licensing-biz-global-brand |publisher=The Drum |date=July 24, 2017}}</ref>

On September 23, 2021, it was announced that [[Scott Fahlman]] was holding an auction for the original emoticons he created in 1982. The auction was held in [[Dallas]], United States, and sold the two designs as [[non-fungible token|non-fungible tokens (NFT)]].<ref>{{cite web |title=First smiley and frowny emoticons go under hammer in US |url=https://www.dailysabah.com/life/first-smiley-and-frowny-emoticons-go-under-hammer-in-us/news |publisher=[[Daily Sabah]] |date=September 11, 2021}}</ref> The online auction ended later that month, with the originals selling for [[United States dollar|US$]]237,500.<ref name="Future Zone">{{Cite web |author=<!--Staff writer; no byline--> |date=2021-09-24 |title=Erstes digitales Smiley für mehr als 200.000 Dollar als NFT versteigert |trans-title=First digital smiley sold for more than $ 200,000 as NFT |url=https://futurezone.at/digital-life/erstes-smiley-als-nft-versteigert-237500-dollar/401746341 |website=Future Zone |language=de}}</ref>

In some [[programming language]]s, certain operators are known informally by their emoticon-like appearance. This includes the [[Spaceship operator]] <code>&lt;=&gt;</code> (a comparison), the [[Generics in Java#Diamond operator|Diamond operator]] <code>&lt;&gt;</code> (for type hinting) and the [[Elvis operator]] <code>?:</code> (a shortened [[ternary operator]]).<ref name=groovy>[http://docs.groovy-lang.org/latest/html/documentation/index.html#_elvis_operator Groovy Language Documentation], includes Spaceship, Elvis and Diamond operators</ref>