4 ms·

> Selectively break Unicode without warning because... politics? Not completely unheard of... https://emojipedia.org/pistol/ https://emojipedia.org/pistol/

• seba_dos1 8y ago
  Doesn't really count as "breaking Unicode".
  • darkpuma 8y ago
    Perhaps China can give Taiwan the finger without "breaking unicode" by simply demanding that fonts including the Taiwanese flag use a glyph that reads "One China Policy".
    • seba_dos1 8y ago
      Toy pistol is still a pistol, so everything's alright. You'd have to replace the glyph with something that can still be considered Taiwanese flag.
      • darkpuma 8y ago
        Frankly that's an abuse of language. If you were to say > "In the UK, it is legal for children to buy pistols" Everybody would call you nuts. If you then smirked and said that water pistols are pistols, they'd groan at you.
        • seba_dos1 8y ago
          No, now that's an abuse of logic and intention. We're talking about symbolic pictograms here, not laws. Just as you can depict emoticons by using humans, robots, colorful blobs or martians, you can depict pistols as toys, futuristic laser blowers, steampunk machinery or wild west revolvers. It's a symbol and you're free to show it any way you want.
          • darkpuma 8y ago
            We're talking about language, not cars. It's no different than if all the emoticons for cars were modified to be RC cars with large antennas surrounded by lighting bolts to signify that they're receiving radio transmissions. An RC car "is a car" a hypothetical you might protest, but a toy car is not the same in substance as "a car" in much the same way that a toy pistol is not the same in substance as "a pistol." Perhaps one day moralizing tech companies might even take this seriously and revise fonts to denormalize personal car ownership for the noble cause of environmental protection. Is that ridiculous? No moreso I'd argue than depicting all handguns as squirt guns.
            • seba_dos1 8y ago
              Depicting "car" emoji as a toy car would be perfectly fine and within the artistic license of font makers. Just as depicting a toy gun is.
              • 13of40 8y ago
                Imagine if they decided to turn the LGBT rainbow icon into a couple of hands holding each other, not to enhance the meaning of the glyph, but to, you know, protect children from gay ideas and make it harder for people to communicate about LGBT issues. Is that fair play? To me it sounds like somewhere between how dictionaries used to censor naughty words and 1984's newspeak.
                • seba_dos1 8y ago
                  No, because couple of hands holding each other doesn't represent "Rainbow Flag" (combination of "Waving White Flag" and "Rainbow" glyphs) in any way, so that's a clear spec violation. However, if they decided to show a "rainbow painted on a white flag" instead of "rainbow-colored flag", it would be well within the Unicode spec. Of course it would have additional meaning and you can disagree with such decision on other grounds (I probably would), but it still wouldn't be "breaking Unicode", just like toy gun as "pistol" or toy car as "car" isn't. Hell, you can even make a font where every single emoji is depicted by toy cars doing silly faces and carrying things around.