Say it with an emoji!

QUESTION Who coined the word emoji? THE word emoji comes from the Japanese e, meaning picture, and

moji, meaning character. It was coined in 1999 by Shigetaka Kurita, an employee of NTT DoCoMo, the leading mobile phone operator in Japan.

The term is related to kanji, Chinese ideographs that make up the bulk of Japanese writing. Kurita also designed the first emojis.

While the emoji is a modern invention, its forebear, the emoticon, has a long history.

This pictorial representation of a facial expression or mood uses punctuation marks, numbers and letters. On March 30, 1881, four emoticons, described as typographical art, were published in the satirical magazine Puck.

They produced four examples using brackets, hyphens, full stops and commas to express joy, melancholy, indifference and astonishment.

The emoticon’s internet-era genesis is considered to have occurred in September 1982 when computer scientist Scott Fahlman suggested to the Carnegie Mellon University message board that :-) and :-( could be used to distinguish jokes from serious statements online. Shortly after came the name emoticon, a portmanteau of emotion icon.

Kurita, who was working on the development team for i-mode, an early mobile internet platform, wanted to design an attractive interface to convey information in a simple, succinct way. For example, he wanted icons to show the weather forecast rather than spelling out ‘rainy’ or ‘sunny’.

He created 176 pixel images, including a sun, cloud, umbrella, sandcastle and wheelchair, that could be selected from a keyboard-like grid and sent on mobiles and pages as individual characters.

Although they may look a little rudimentary today, they have proved remarkably influential over the years. Kurita’s original emoji set is part of the permanent collection at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Michael Richardson, Tenby, Pembs.

QUESTION What became of Oscar Wilde’s sons Cyril and Vyvyan? FURTHER to previous answer, Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was an Irish poet, wit and playwright. At the height of his fame, while The Importance Of Being Earnest was being performed in London, he was convicted of gross indecency with men and sentenced to two years’ hard labour in Reading jail.

This led to the break-up of his family and ultimately his decline and death.

Wilde had married Constance Lloyd, daughter of Horace Lloyd, a wealthy QC, on May 29, 1884. Cyril was born in 1885 and Vyvyan in 1886.

Constance accepted Wilde’s sexual proclivities and the pair were on good terms. Following her husband’s downfall, she changed her name to Holland and moved to Switzerland. Wilde never saw his sons again.

Cyril joined the British Army and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant, Royal Field Artillery, on December 20, 1905.

He was promoted to Lieutenant in 1908 and served in India from 1911 to 1914 with No. 9 Ammunition Column, RFA, at Secunderabad. He was promoted to Captain on October 30, 1914.

When the First World War broke out, Cyril returned to Europe to fight. He was killed by a sniper during the Battle of Festubert in France on May 9, 1915, and is buried at St Vaast Post Military Cemetery, Richebourg-l’Avoue.

Vyvyan studied law at Cambridge and was called to the Bar in 1912. At the onset of the First World War, he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Interpreters Corps, and later transferred into 114 Battery, XXV Bde Royal Field Artillery.

Awarded an OBE, Vyvyan went on to become an author and translator, working for the BBC for six years. In September 1943, he married the Australian Thelma Besant, who for 12 years was the Queen’s beautician.

Thelma persuaded him to write the autobiography Son Of Oscar Wilde in 1954 in which he described his father as devoted and loving.

Vyvyan died in London in 1967, aged 80. He once said: ‘Because of my father, I have been suspected of being a homosexual. I – who have wasted my time, my money, my substance on women!’ Janine Marsh, Chepstow, Monmouthshire.

QUESTION Was there a fad in the Sixties for baroque harpsichords in pop music? FURTHER to the earlier answer about the popularity of the harpsichord in the Sixties, the great record producer Eddie Kramer used the instrument to gorgeous effect in the 1973 eponymous album by US glam rock singersongwriter Jobriath, who was dubbed the American Bowie.

The track I’m A Man is suffused throughout with harpsichord, as is the song Morning Star Ship.

While Bowie cultivated androgyny in the homophobic Seventies, Jobriath was flamboyantly gay in dress and demeanour. Perhaps it was this that prevented him from becoming the star he should have been in the US. He died of Aids in 1983, largely unfeted in his home country. Eoin Jennings, Dublin.

QUESTION Is there any difference between the Tayto crisps produced in Ireland and those produced in Northern Ireland? FANS of the Irish-made potato crisps say that there are subtle differences of flavour between Tayto crisps made in Ashbourne, Co. Meath and those made north of the border in Tandragee, Co. Armagh. Two different companies are responsible for producing them, which accounts for the fact that the two Tayto brands don’t taste the same. In Ireland, Tayto crisps went into production in 1954, when Joe Murphy started producing them in a small factory in Dublin. Murphy was the first crisp producer anywhere in the world to start producing flavoured crisps. In time, Tayto crisps were sold to Cantrell & Cochrane. However, in 1983, Raymond Coyle, a farmer who supplied potatoes to the main crisp makers in Ireland, set up Largo Foods.

In 2006, he paid €65million to buy both Tayto and King crisps from Cantrell & Cochrane. The following year, German company Intersnack started buying into Largo Foods, completing its takeover in 2015. These days, Tayto crisps are German-owned and Tayto is now so big that it buys 10% of the national potato crop. Another big addition to the brand came in 2010 when Tayto and Raymond Coyle opened Tayto Park – slow off the ground, but it’s now a huge tourist attraction. Graham Nester, Dublin 15.