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The USB, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth symbols. A spray can to represent spray paint, insect spray, or spray lubricant. There's a power plug but no power socket. There

The USB, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth symbols. A spray can to represent spray paint, insect spray, or spray lubricant. There's a power plug but no power socket. There's no staples or stapler. There are no appliances—no oven, microwave, toaster, mixer, washer, or vacuum cleaner. There's no traffic cone.

joosters 7y ago
I guess the power socket might prove contentious, since they look very different across countries... power plugs, although variable, can be identified more easily since they look more alike and have a power cord attached. The traffic cone would be good for VLC! They could give rename their app so the name matches the icon :-) That got me thinking: are there any common apps that use emojis in their name?
- colejohnson66 7y ago
  Rename VLC to “TRAFFIC CONE GLYPH”?
duskwuff 7y ago
> The USB, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth symbols. I believe those are all trademarked. Unicode tries to avoid those. > A spray can to represent spray paint, insect spray, or spray lubricant. Interesting idea! I wonder if there'd be any interest in getting wider coverage of other bitmap paint tools: rectangular selection, lasso, paint bucket... > There's a power plug but no power socket. That's problematic from a localization perspective, as electrical sockets vary widely from country to country, and some of them may be difficult to recognize as a socket at a small size. For example, some European countries use a socket which is made of three circular pins in a straight line -- it'd just look like an ellipsis. Besides, there isn't a lot of symbolic meaning that's conveyed by a socket that couldn't be expressed just as well with a plug. > There's no staples or stapler. Maybe. There isn't a lot of symbolic meaning to these either, though. > There are no appliances—no oven, microwave, toaster, mixer, washer, or vacuum cleaner. A lot of those will just look like white boxes at text size, and -- again -- they don't have a lot of symbolic meaning. You might be able to make a case for an upright vacuum cleaner, though, since that's visually distinctive and is associated with cleaning. > There's no traffic cone. Oh, I like that idea. It's got some symbolic meanings, too, like "warning" and "under construction". There is already a construction sign (U+1F6A7), though.
- Doxin 7y ago
  To be fair, a lot of existing unicode points don't really have a semantic meaning either. Eggplant only got a semantic meaning after becoming a part of unicode.
  - Symbiote 7y ago
    It means aubergine, doesn't it? At least originally. It's distinctive. For cleaning, a broom is probably better than a vacuum cleaner. A broom already exists 🧹
    - majewsky 7y ago
      "Aubergine" and "eggplant" refer to the same vegetable. The "semantic meaning" is probably the NSFW one.
Symbiote 7y ago
ᚼᛒ The Bluetooth logo is two runes, which perhaps could have a zero width joiner between them in iOS emoji abuse style.
sjwright 7y ago
A dim/dark light bulb to complement the bright light bulb. The mouse pointer symbol. More than one breed of dog.

joosters 7y ago

I guess the power socket might prove contentious, since they look very different across countries... power plugs, although variable, can be identified more easily since they look more alike and have a power cord attached. The traffic cone would be good for VLC! They could give rename their app so the name matches the icon :-) That got me thinking: are there any common apps that use emojis in their name?

colejohnson66 7y ago
Rename VLC to “TRAFFIC CONE GLYPH”?

duskwuff 7y ago

> The USB, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth symbols. I believe those are all trademarked. Unicode tries to avoid those. > A spray can to represent spray paint, insect spray, or spray lubricant. Interesting idea! I wonder if there'd be any interest in getting wider coverage of other bitmap paint tools: rectangular selection, lasso, paint bucket... > There's a power plug but no power socket. That's problematic from a localization perspective, as electrical sockets vary widely from country to country, and some of them may be difficult to recognize as a socket at a small size. For example, some European countries use a socket which is made of three circular pins in a straight line -- it'd just look like an ellipsis. Besides, there isn't a lot of symbolic meaning that's conveyed by a socket that couldn't be expressed just as well with a plug. > There's no staples or stapler. Maybe. There isn't a lot of symbolic meaning to these either, though. > There are no appliances—no oven, microwave, toaster, mixer, washer, or vacuum cleaner. A lot of those will just look like white boxes at text size, and -- again -- they don't have a lot of symbolic meaning. You might be able to make a case for an upright vacuum cleaner, though, since that's visually distinctive and is associated with cleaning. > There's no traffic cone. Oh, I like that idea. It's got some symbolic meanings, too, like "warning" and "under construction". There is already a construction sign (U+1F6A7), though.

Doxin 7y ago
To be fair, a lot of existing unicode points don't really have a semantic meaning either. Eggplant only got a semantic meaning after becoming a part of unicode.
- Symbiote 7y ago
  It means aubergine, doesn't it? At least originally. It's distinctive. For cleaning, a broom is probably better than a vacuum cleaner. A broom already exists 🧹
  - majewsky 7y ago
    "Aubergine" and "eggplant" refer to the same vegetable. The "semantic meaning" is probably the NSFW one.

Symbiote 7y ago

ᚼᛒ The Bluetooth logo is two runes, which perhaps could have a zero width joiner between them in iOS emoji abuse style.

sjwright 7y ago

A dim/dark light bulb to complement the bright light bulb. The mouse pointer symbol. More than one breed of dog.