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Comment by munro | Hacker News Reader

I just had an argument over IRC with a stranger on the internet last week. We're still out there.

I thought the humor on this site hadn't aged well, but this one got me:

    < pronto> :(
    < GiftdKook> Turn that frown upside down!
    < korozion> ):

View on HN

I remember a similar quote that was something like:

    <user> :b
    <someone> how did you make that backwards d?

I remember that one! It was d-_-b

There's also,

  <user 1> <3
  <user 2> 3> wait how do you do that
  <user 2> ε> nvm figured it out

Very Eternal September.

I know everything is logged but I basically quit using irc when tons of channels started having bots that would log EVERYTHING in a room to public urls.

But it is really cool that I can read channel logs from events, like 9/11.

.bef Duck friends

You're trying to befriend a non-existing duck!

(some sort of duck game for HN could be neat. Can't see why it wouldn't be possible...)

Sorry, I don't get it!

People say "turn that frown upside down" as a phrase to mean "don't frown, smile!"

But the poster flipped the emoji so it was a frowning face pointing right, then a frowning face pointing left

"Turn that frown upside down" means to smile, instead, :( to :)

But the chatter just flipped the whole face, so it's still sad: :( ):

"Turn that frown upside down" is a way of saying - don't be sad, be happy. Instead of having the corners of your mouth point down (frown), have them point up (smile). The joke is that if you move the eyes to the other side of the mouth, it remains a frown.

Expectation

:( becomes :)

Subversion

:( becomes ):

It's a very American expression. In British culture a frown refers to a forehead expression, not a mouth expression.

How interesting - I'm British, and I got the joke immediately. Yet, I'd hardly move my mouth if someone asked me to put on a frown. I'd never really thought about that one before.

Yeah, it's a well known expression, but it only makes literal sense in American English.

The implication is that if you are sad there are more associated tells than just your mouth. Imagine a clown doing a mock sad face and exaggerating sadness by frowning.

I've always felt this was a forced contrivance and never that anyone literally thought frowning had anything to do with smiling.

Oh! I didn't notice the :( and the ): signs. I thought it was a play on the usernames < pronto> and < korozion>!

The intended goal was to get the other person to reply :) by inverting the mouth. Instead, the whole "frown face" was inverted.

And you never will!

Geez, the number of people that don't recognise bash.org quotes saddens me.

https://web.archive.org/web/20230401050146/http://bash.org/?...

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