Yes, but as the author of the article argues, the emoji icon of an eggplant has been culturally interpreted with a different semiotic meaning. The same could ve

Yes, but as the author of the article argues, the emoji icon of an eggplant has been culturally interpreted with a different semiotic meaning. The same could very well happen with the emoji icon of a watergun (despite the emoji’s semiotic shift), indicating a symbolic duplexity in the meaning of a handgun. I.e., if you choose to mean a handgun when writing a watergun, the emoji’s meaning can change.