Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Emojis, the unsqueezed plooks of online communication

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In my ongoing, although sorely beset on all sides, defence of the English language I must acknowledge a worthy foe.

This is not to say I respect this enemy, and I certainly do not admire their work. But I admit they have become legion and good English is hard pressed by their fell onslaught.

I’m talking about the cult of emojis. Those little faces, and other depictions, in electronic messages.

I laughed in 2015 when Oxford Dictionaries named “the face with tears of joy” emoji as their word of the year. I thought this was an ironic, perhaps comical, stab at a childish frippery. No more to be taken seriously than the arrangement of the letter “o”, a bracket, and several equals signs to depict a sword oo{=======>

I’m not laughing now. These unsqueezed plooks have spread all across the face of online communication. It won’t be long before TV news bulletins start displaying choo-choo sketches instead of the word “train”, and yellow discs with down-turned mouths when bad news scrolls along the bottom of the screen. You’ll be sent a picture of a syringe alongside an arm as a Covid vaccine reminder.

Our birthright is the English language. It has the widest vocabulary of all languages. Any concept, any object, any thing you have the wit to imagine can be described with this endlessly fecund tool of expression. I’m going to put it plainly: anyone who is so lacking in basic English skills that they can’t properly express themselves without using infantile squiggles is a fool.

No profound truth can be revealed by a face with crosses for eyes. No poetry is woven from line drawings of vegetables. No deeds of great moment are inspired by a thumbs-up sign.

If anyone sends me a message using pictograms then take it as read I won’t read it. I won’t understand what you are trying to say. My eye skips over these dull-witted doodles. I make no attempt to decipher them, and never will.

The swarm of this semi-language will soon engulf all written material. No one will use basic words like carrot, happy, aeroplane, or love. There will only be little red hearts and drawings copied from books aimed at pre-school children to represent such words.

No one will know how many Rs are in carrot, or realise there is an “ae” start to aeroplane. Proper punctuation will become extinct because commas, semi-colons, and apostrophes can’t be inserted between pictures. Words that are difficult to draw – such as reform, constitute, or redeem – will wither and die.

This is a serious battle. This is war. The future of communication on this planet is at stake and the enemy armies are winning. Tomorrow belongs, tomorrow belongs, tomorrow belongs to them.

 


 

Word of the week

Pygal (adjective)

Of, or pertaining to, the hind-quarters of an animal. EG: “I think emojis are pygal-produced effluent.”


Read the latest Oh my word! every Saturday in The Courier. Contact me at sfinan@dctmedia.co.uk