It's Grammar Day! We are talking about English and we can enjoy a field trip through new ideas...
Meanwhile in the gallery we have the equally expressive Print Magazine Awards.
The (Smiley) Face of the Future
In a text message, the only thing separating barely suppressed hostility and authentic gratitude is a simple 😃. Just look at the difference between "Okay, thanks" and "Okay, thanks 😃."
Texts are often only a few words long, not enough to establish a tone of voice. Emoji were developed in the late 90s to try to concentrate the entire tonal work of a sentence, which is normally shaped by each decision a writer makes, from word choice to syntax, into one character.
"The only thing separating barely suppressed hostility and authentic gratitude is a simple 😃"
Though some think they're the death of grammar, emoji follow grammar rules all their own.
- Emoji of tone, like smileys, appear at the end of thoughts to tell others how to interpret them 😓
- They're read from left to right like most modern languages
- Their use varies by region, gender, and age, similar to linguistic dialects
- Emoji of tone appear before emoji of action, 😝🙌
- The subject of an emoji "sentence" varies according to which way a verb points, as in 😺👈👶 ("The baby points at the cat.")
Emoji aren't replacing written language anytime soon, but at least now you don't have to wonder whether a friend is "fine 😃" or "fine 😡."
