All over the country these days, e-mail messages are ending with this strange little mark：-)or：-(．It was 20 years ago that Scott Fahlman taught the Net how to smile．The Carnegie Mellon computer scientist has devoted his life to man-made intelligence, the practice of teaching computers how to think like humans, but the scientist is perhaps best known for a flash of inspiration that helped to define Internet culture．
By the early 1980s the Computer Science Group at Carnegie Mellon was making heavy use of online notice boards．A good many of the messages were humorous．The problem was that if someone made a humorous remark, a few readers would fail to get the joke．This problem caused some people to suggest that maybe it would be a good idea to clearly mark messages that were not to be taken seriously．After all, when using text-based online communication, we lack the body language or the tone of voice that communicates this information when we talk in person or on the phone．So on Sept．19, 1982, Fahlman typed：-)in an online message．“I had no idea I was starting something that would soon pollute all the world’s communications channels,”he wrote later．The“smiley face”has since become common in online communication．
This creation caught on quickly around Carnegie Mellon, and soon spread to other universities and research labs by means of the computer networks of the day．Since then, the smiling marks have taken the e-mail world by storm．
Yahoo, Microsoft and America Online all put the faces into their instant-messaging systems, while telecom companies, jewelry makers and online merchants have sent in trademark applications for products and ads that include Fahlman’s smiley face．
But Fahlman has never seen a dollar from his creation．“If it cost people a cent to use it, nobody would have used it．This is my little gift to the world, for better or worse,”he said．
(1)
The underlined words“this information”in Paragraph 3 refer to ________．
[ ]
A．
the body language
B．
the suggestion of marking messages
C．
the tone of voice
D．
the humors behind the words
(2)
The purpose of Fahlman in typing the first smiley face was ________．
[ ]
A．
to show others that he didn’t take his message seriously
B．
to fill all the world’s communications channels with smiley faces
C．
to make money out of telecom companies and online merchants
D．
to show his happy feelings and to help to define Internet culture
(3)
What does the passage mainly talk about?
[ ]
A．
The Internet culture．
B．
The online communications system．
C．
The humorous message．
D．
The online smiley face．
(4)
What can we infer from the text?
[ ]
A．
Fahlman invented the smiley faces to become wealthy and famous．
B．
Fahlman doesn’t mind that people use his smiley faces for free．
C．
Fahlman is disappointed that noboby would like to pay a cent for the smiley faces．
D．
The smiley faces were created to pollute the world’s communications channels．
