Did you know that the Oxford English Dictionary “word of the year” for 2015 wasn’t a word at all?! It was the “Face with tears of joy” emoji.
That’s not a word, people.
At first, when Dana shared this tidbit, I reacted with horror. Little yellow faces can not adequately replace words, can they? Surely the “laughed til I cried” emoji is a sad, insufficient substitute for “You’re hilarious!” or “Stop it, you’re killing me.”
But here’s the thing: we need language to share ideas and to understand each other. With the advent of social media and ever shorter communication snippets, more of our interactions use abbreviated text. Since we’re “talking” more often without the assistance of non-verbal cues (facial expressions, gestures, tone), we need something to help convey meaning or we’re going to have serious miscommunication issues.
Here’s an example. In my house, we speak fluent sarcasm . Unfortunately, sarcasm gets misinterpreted often enough in real life. Without the company of facial expression or tone, satirical comments might come off as mean or rude in comments, texts, or emails. In other words, my people and I need emojis.
Daughter might be the exception. She manages to establish tone in her digital communication without the help of emojis, since her “dumb phone” can’t send or receive emoticons. She uses caps lock and phrasing to get her point across. For example:
MOM I’M DYING STOP IT
doesn’t need the angry face emoji to convey Daughter’s displeasure. Or,
How bout no
doesn’t need the “smoke from the nostrils” face to communicate her stubborn refusal.
Soon, she’ll get a smart phone with emoticon capability, but I hope she won’t depend too much on those little expressive faces – her language is much funnier. And that’s the danger – that too many emojis will ruin our drive to combine words in interesting ways.
So here’s where I stand: emojis can not and should not replace the variety and depth of language in communication, but they can assist with conveying meaning. And, they’re fun.
My favorite emoji: anything with a wink. That says, “I’m kidding,” just in case people don’t get my sarcasm.
And, my favorite new emoji with the latest iOS update? The Word Nerd!
Unfortunately, gingers don’t get any love in the emoji population… Maybe with the next update.
Do you think Emojis are a good thing? If you use them, what’s your favorite?
And if you’re interested in how social media is affecting our language, see this article from Buffer.com.
Thanks for getting nerdy with me! 😉
We speak sarcasm too, Julia. I use the emojis to convey the emotion, particularly when the person I’m communicating with doesn’t know me very well. I don’t want my sarcasm or sense of humor to be misinterpreted, and the emojis (or more basic ;)) help with that. The wink is my most used emoji too – it’s a sarcastic gal’s best choice!
Thanks for the shout out, by the way…I always smile when I get a pingback from you. A real smile, not an emoji.
Smiling back (see how I didn’t use pictures?)
I was in corporate for 35 years & developed a very straight-forward, cut the lingo cr** style that I’ve been trying for a decade now to soften. So I also find the ‘winks’ very useful.
My favourite, though, is the dude with the sunglasses “cool”. I’ll have to look for that learned-looking word nerd!
The “cool” is fun too – my teenaged son uses that one a lot.