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I wonder if they're ever going to decide that enough emoji is enough, or will continue adding more until every word in the dictionary is an emoji. There have be

I wonder if they're ever going to decide that enough emoji is enough, or will continue adding more until every word in the dictionary is an emoji. There have been some ridiculous inclusions in the past years despite more obvious candidates that are still missing. The great thing about emoji used to be the constraints, which made for a clear overview of available emoji and made people use the limited set in creative ways to express different things. Besides the more extraneous options, they never should've started adding things like skin/hair color modifiers imo, sticking to the single yellow/neutral color instead. Counterproductively, that opened up ways for people to not feel represented.

inhumantsar 3y ago
I genuinely hope that emojis keep being added. A lot of meaning can be packed into a single emoji which (usually) transcends language and culture. It's been fascinating to see emoji work their way into everyday usage, even in professional settings. I would love to see the day where emoji becomes a viable form of cross-cultural shorthand.
- throw37284 3y ago
  Reminds me of the Chinese written language. People who speak different dialects or languages can still communicate with written Chinese. I remember at a conference talking to a Japanese guy and a guy from Korea. I wrote my name in Chinese and they could both read it, but said it in their native language.
- mostlylurks 3y ago
  > I would love to see the day where emoji becomes a viable form of cross-cultural shorthand. I have my doubts regarding this. We're already seeing a situation where different groups within a single culture, the young and the old, use many common emoji in ways that differ dramatically (at least in the west), sometimes even with opposing meanings. If the meanings of emoji aren't stable even within a single culture, how could they ever hope to transcend culture?
  - dmvdoug 3y ago
    Oh god this. I get emails from students with emoji and I very frequently have to ask them, “How are you using this one?” Of course, the fascinating thing is that different groups of kids use the same emoji slightly differently. So.
  - inhumantsar 3y ago
    The same way we manage words with multiple meanings or different words which sound the same: context and history
numpad0 3y ago
Whilist problems from Unicode comingling CJK(more like CCJ?) characters are getting worse. Yeah, it's a great situation. 1: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FdxZ5koVsAAQj-n.png:medium https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FdxZ5koVsAAQj-n.png:medium 2: https://jyurin-hack.com/it/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/nihongo-e1505790174493-600x238.jpg https://jyurin-hack.com/it/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/nihong... 3: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/chinese-fonts-rendering-problem-on-windows-10-pro/481f1032-156a-449e-bbc0-204f9cc139c5 https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/chines... 4: https://www.codeproject.com/Tips/1227524/Fixing-Inconsistent-Stroke-Width-of-Chinese-Charac https://www.codeproject.com/Tips/1227524/Fixing-Inconsistent...
derefr 3y ago
Mobile-phone OS vendors like Apple and Google invent cute little pictures for people to send to each-other in text messages (and, mostly coincidentally, type into other apps and post to the web.) Then they tell the Unicode Consortium that they've invented these little pictures, and they're planning on putting them in their software, and so the Unicode Consortium better assign them codepoints, because if they don't, they'll just encode those pictures with a proprietary encoding and send them anyway, like ICQ and MSN did back in 2001. And then the Unicode Consortium does give them a codepoint — because the whole point of Unicode is that there shouldn't be any text on the Internet that can't have its meaning determined 50 years from now because it was encoded in some proprietary now-lost encoding. This is how it was from the very beginning. The first emoji codepoints in Unicode were added in order to have a valid projection-mapping into Unicode of the "SJIS with emojis" text written on Japanese mobile phones that became common on the Japanese Internet — including documents like "cellphone novels" with high historical preservation value.
matsemann 3y ago
> There have been some ridiculous inclusions in the past years despite more obvious candidates that are still missing. Well, obvious missing to you. That's probably why it will always expand, no one will agree on when it's done, including you. ;)
- Symbiote 3y ago
  I'll suggest genitals and breasts as the most obvious missing emojis. Most other major body parts are included.
  - arcanemachiner 3y ago
    Well, there's the eggplant and the peach.
- johnofthesea 3y ago
  I use Emojis for my gardening site as icons for taxonomical families. So I would welcome some berries and maybe more vegetables.
  - WastingMyTime89 3y ago
    Have you heard of this thing called an image?
    - johnofthesea 3y ago
      Hh sure I even like to create some. But for this purpose I do not bother. I need something small that I can just use for personal purpose. It works well with outdoor internet - where it is used. Adds bit of accent on minimal site to ease the navigation. I do not really care if they add more veggies etc. I mentioned it as user-case in context of adding random Emojis.
    - __jonas 3y ago
      Emojis are great as quick icons that take zero work to source, add in, align with text in the layout and size consistently. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, especially since people on hn love to complain about inclusion of unnecessary assets in websites that could be more lightweight.
RobotToaster 3y ago
I can't remember which program it was, but there's one that has Unofficial support for combining most emoji (so (cowboy) (cat) becomes a cowboy cat, for instance). I kind of like that idea.
- xigoi 3y ago
  https://emojipedia.org/emoji-kitchen/ https://emojipedia.org/emoji-kitchen/ https://emoji.supply/kitchen/ https://emoji.supply/kitchen/
- jonas-w 3y ago
  https://emojikitchen.dev/ https://emojikitchen.dev/ Googles emoji kitchen
- srdjanr 3y ago
  Gboard has something like that
odiroot 3y ago
It took them ages to a add a dumpling emoji!
EarthIsHome 3y ago
> I wonder if they're ever going to decide that enough emoji is enough, or will continue adding more until every word in the dictionary is an emoji. Emojis, like language, is social and will continue to change.
- eloisius 3y ago
  It’s unlike language because words can fluidly be invented or fall out of use. Emoji is designed by a committee. If it expands to include everything it will just be unusable. Why not just use pictures at that point anyway?
  - chromoblob 3y ago
    Why do you think it will be unusable? Chinese and Japanese have IME.
    - eloisius 3y ago
      I input Chinese everyday and it’s fairly simple. You input a phonetic sequence and choose the character. I already find it hard to use emoji. It takes forever to scan through the faces to find the one I want, and search online sometimes helps because emoji often have a popular use that isn’t congruent with their “official” purpose.
      - chromoblob 3y ago
        Just wait for or create an Emoji IME which suggests emoji based on name. This already exists in Windows 10.
      - opan 3y ago
        I don't know if there's a default OS solution that's any good, but I have a file of emoji + their text names and I use bemenu (like dmenu) to filter through it by name and put the selection on my clipboard. I bind this script to super-z on my keyboard in my Sway config. I based it on something[0] I found online that used dmenu or rofi and input the text for you. I adapted it to work better on Wayland by using a Wayland-native menu instead. [0] https://github.com/LVMBDV/emoji https://github.com/LVMBDV/emoji I'm probably missing some newer ones now. Not sure how the original list was made. Emacs's M-x insert-char may be able to do something kinda similar. I know describe-char works great for identifying an emoji at least.
johannes1234321 3y ago
> I wonder if they're ever going to decide that enough emoji is enough, Really hard to do by this time. Since they allowed so many it's harder to say no. They have a burrito, but why no kebap, yet? They have person's playing basketball or golfing, but no person playing football (any variant) putting a stop to it gives an arbitrary set and restricts representing develoment in society (they have kick scooters which are modern, but what about the future successor?) But of course, the more they add the harder it is to use. These new directional ones can be hidden as variants similar to skin color etc is currently handled in UIs, but individual ones ... Deprecating also isn't an option. Text using those exists. They can't really break it.
- olliecornelia 3y ago
  https://emojipedia.org/stuffed-flatbread/ https://emojipedia.org/stuffed-flatbread/
  - johannes1234321 3y ago
    Oh, missed that addition! Thanks! And it didn't come up in a name search.
- DeusExMachina 3y ago
  Welcome to the world where every idiosyncrasy is considered an identity worth representing, through emojis or other means, generating a never-ending breakdown of people into groups that feel excluded.
  - olliecornelia 3y ago
    You’re fighting the good fight for braindead take representation.
  - flangola7 3y ago
    Eh?
  - roland35 3y ago
vasco 3y ago
Skin color emojis are the weirdest thing. I always find it slightly odd if someone changed them from the default yellow. Why would one care?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- realusername 3y ago
  I also don't get it, it should be a system wide setting and not something the sender specifies, I don't see any point in having some additional info not representing the meaning.
  - kemayo 3y ago
    There is meaning, though -- it's specifically saying something about the person sending it and how they chose to present themselves.
    - realusername 3y ago
      I don't think there's any value to that though, emojis were more neutral before they added a color skin to it. Instead of reading "I'm happy", now you have a combination of "I'm happy but also white" or "I'm happy but also black", I don't think that belongs here and I don't see any point to that. If you don't like how they appear, some system setting could be made for changing the overall colours to switch them all to black, white, green or any other colour.
  - Sharlin 3y ago
    Why in heaven's name should it be a system wide setting? What sense would that make?
    - realusername 3y ago
      The whole feature doesn't make any sense in my opinion anyways. But if people are really sensitive to how emoji appears (a big if in my opinion since emojis are trivial but let's go with it), they could change them in the settings.
lapcat 3y ago
This is why I stopped using emoji 5 years and never looked back. It's a really stupidly designed system if you need operating system updates just to read text! I won't participate in that insanity anymore. Emoji have become trite, lazy, and practically meaningless, especially a few such as "face with tears of joy", "rolling on the floor laughing face", and "fire". Emoticons used to be a supplement for words, indicating the tone of the words, but now emoji are a replacement for words, the ultimate illiteracy. The reductio ad absurdum is the recent Canadian legal case where the court determined that a "thumbs up" emoji signals a binding contract.
- post-it 3y ago
  > The reductio ad absurdum is the recent Canadian legal case where the court determined that a "thumbs up" emoji signals a binding contract. Why do you believe so? If "Looks good," "Ok," and "Yup" signal a binding contract, as detailed in the case you're talking about, I contend it's perfectly reasonable for :thumbsup: to also signal a binding contract between the same parties. [0] Consider: > 5. For instance, on July 14, 2020, after discussing and agreeing on a contract with Chris Achter, I prepared a contract for the sale of 185 metric tons [sic] of durum wheat from Achter Ltd. to SWT for a price of $312.31 per ton [sic]. I signed the contract and then took a photo of it using my cell phone and sent it to Chris at 306-264-7664. I messaged: “Please confirm terms of durum contract.” Chris texted me back: “Looks good”. At the time, I understood this to be that Chris was agreeing to the contract and this was his way of signally [sic] that agreement. Achter Ltd. delivered on this contract without issue. A copy of the contract and text message is attached as Exhibit “B”. > 6. On September 11, 2020, after discussing and agreeing on a contract with Chris Acter [sic], I prepared a contract for the sale of 131 metric tons [sic] of durum wheat from Achter Ltd. to SWT for a price of $284.77 per ton [sic]. I signed the contract and then took a photo of it using my cell phone and sent it to Chris at 306-264-7664. I messaged: “Please confirm terms of durum contract”. Chris texted me back: “Ok”. At that time, I understood this to be that Chris was agreeing to the contract and this was his way of signally [sic] that agreement. Achter Ltd. delivered on this contract without issue. A copy of the contract and the text messages is attached as Exhibit “C”. > 7. On October 21, 2020, after discussing and agreeing on a contract with Chris Acter [sic], I prepared a contract for the sale of 395 metric tons [sic] of durum wheat from Achter Ltd. to SWT for a price of $308.65 per ton [sic]. I signed the contract and then took a photo of it using my cell phone and sent it to Chris at 306-264-7664. I messaged: “Please confirm terms of durum contract”. Chris texted me back: “Yup”. At that time, I understood this to be that Chris was agreeing to the contract and this was his way of signally [sic] that agreement. Achter Ltd. delivered on this contract without issue. A copy of the contract and the text messages is attached as Exhibit “D”. [0] https://www.canlii.org/en/sk/skkb/doc/2023/2023skkb116/2023skkb116.html https://www.canlii.org/en/sk/skkb/doc/2023/2023skkb116/2023s...
LordDragonfang 3y ago
Speaking of obvious candidates, somehow Unicode still doesn't include the "external link" symbol, despite it being used almost everywhere (and fitting the original mission of accurately transcribing text) https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2018/18303-external-link.pdf https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2018/18303-external-link.pdf
Name_Chawps 3y ago
I think every noun should have an emoji. Why not? I'm allowed to talk about lemons, but not limes? Why? Better that every noun has a single canonical representation.

inhumantsar 3y ago

I genuinely hope that emojis keep being added. A lot of meaning can be packed into a single emoji which (usually) transcends language and culture. It's been fascinating to see emoji work their way into everyday usage, even in professional settings. I would love to see the day where emoji becomes a viable form of cross-cultural shorthand.

throw37284 3y ago
Reminds me of the Chinese written language. People who speak different dialects or languages can still communicate with written Chinese. I remember at a conference talking to a Japanese guy and a guy from Korea. I wrote my name in Chinese and they could both read it, but said it in their native language.
mostlylurks 3y ago
> I would love to see the day where emoji becomes a viable form of cross-cultural shorthand. I have my doubts regarding this. We're already seeing a situation where different groups within a single culture, the young and the old, use many common emoji in ways that differ dramatically (at least in the west), sometimes even with opposing meanings. If the meanings of emoji aren't stable even within a single culture, how could they ever hope to transcend culture?
- dmvdoug 3y ago
  Oh god this. I get emails from students with emoji and I very frequently have to ask them, “How are you using this one?” Of course, the fascinating thing is that different groups of kids use the same emoji slightly differently. So.
- inhumantsar 3y ago
  The same way we manage words with multiple meanings or different words which sound the same: context and history

numpad0 3y ago

Whilist problems from Unicode comingling CJK(more like CCJ?) characters are getting worse. Yeah, it's a great situation. 1: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FdxZ5koVsAAQj-n.png:medium https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FdxZ5koVsAAQj-n.png:medium 2: https://jyurin-hack.com/it/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/nihongo-e1505790174493-600x238.jpg https://jyurin-hack.com/it/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/nihong... 3: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/chinese-fonts-rendering-problem-on-windows-10-pro/481f1032-156a-449e-bbc0-204f9cc139c5 https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/chines... 4: https://www.codeproject.com/Tips/1227524/Fixing-Inconsistent-Stroke-Width-of-Chinese-Charac https://www.codeproject.com/Tips/1227524/Fixing-Inconsistent...

derefr 3y ago

Mobile-phone OS vendors like Apple and Google invent cute little pictures for people to send to each-other in text messages (and, mostly coincidentally, type into other apps and post to the web.) Then they tell the Unicode Consortium that they've invented these little pictures, and they're planning on putting them in their software, and so the Unicode Consortium better assign them codepoints, because if they don't, they'll just encode those pictures with a proprietary encoding and send them anyway, like ICQ and MSN did back in 2001. And then the Unicode Consortium does give them a codepoint — because the whole point of Unicode is that there shouldn't be any text on the Internet that can't have its meaning determined 50 years from now because it was encoded in some proprietary now-lost encoding. This is how it was from the very beginning. The first emoji codepoints in Unicode were added in order to have a valid projection-mapping into Unicode of the "SJIS with emojis" text written on Japanese mobile phones that became common on the Japanese Internet — including documents like "cellphone novels" with high historical preservation value.

matsemann 3y ago

> There have been some ridiculous inclusions in the past years despite more obvious candidates that are still missing. Well, obvious missing to you. That's probably why it will always expand, no one will agree on when it's done, including you. ;)

Symbiote 3y ago
I'll suggest genitals and breasts as the most obvious missing emojis. Most other major body parts are included.
- arcanemachiner 3y ago
  Well, there's the eggplant and the peach.
johnofthesea 3y ago
I use Emojis for my gardening site as icons for taxonomical families. So I would welcome some berries and maybe more vegetables.
- WastingMyTime89 3y ago
  Have you heard of this thing called an image?
  - johnofthesea 3y ago
    Hh sure I even like to create some. But for this purpose I do not bother. I need something small that I can just use for personal purpose. It works well with outdoor internet - where it is used. Adds bit of accent on minimal site to ease the navigation. I do not really care if they add more veggies etc. I mentioned it as user-case in context of adding random Emojis.
  - __jonas 3y ago
    Emojis are great as quick icons that take zero work to source, add in, align with text in the layout and size consistently. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, especially since people on hn love to complain about inclusion of unnecessary assets in websites that could be more lightweight.

RobotToaster 3y ago

I can't remember which program it was, but there's one that has Unofficial support for combining most emoji (so (cowboy) (cat) becomes a cowboy cat, for instance). I kind of like that idea.

xigoi 3y ago
https://emojipedia.org/emoji-kitchen/ https://emojipedia.org/emoji-kitchen/ https://emoji.supply/kitchen/ https://emoji.supply/kitchen/
jonas-w 3y ago
https://emojikitchen.dev/ https://emojikitchen.dev/ Googles emoji kitchen
srdjanr 3y ago
Gboard has something like that

odiroot 3y ago

It took them ages to a add a dumpling emoji!

EarthIsHome 3y ago

> I wonder if they're ever going to decide that enough emoji is enough, or will continue adding more until every word in the dictionary is an emoji. Emojis, like language, is social and will continue to change.

eloisius 3y ago
It’s unlike language because words can fluidly be invented or fall out of use. Emoji is designed by a committee. If it expands to include everything it will just be unusable. Why not just use pictures at that point anyway?
- chromoblob 3y ago
  Why do you think it will be unusable? Chinese and Japanese have IME.
  - eloisius 3y ago
    I input Chinese everyday and it’s fairly simple. You input a phonetic sequence and choose the character. I already find it hard to use emoji. It takes forever to scan through the faces to find the one I want, and search online sometimes helps because emoji often have a popular use that isn’t congruent with their “official” purpose.
    - chromoblob 3y ago
      Just wait for or create an Emoji IME which suggests emoji based on name. This already exists in Windows 10.
    - opan 3y ago
      I don't know if there's a default OS solution that's any good, but I have a file of emoji + their text names and I use bemenu (like dmenu) to filter through it by name and put the selection on my clipboard. I bind this script to super-z on my keyboard in my Sway config. I based it on something[0] I found online that used dmenu or rofi and input the text for you. I adapted it to work better on Wayland by using a Wayland-native menu instead. [0] https://github.com/LVMBDV/emoji https://github.com/LVMBDV/emoji I'm probably missing some newer ones now. Not sure how the original list was made. Emacs's M-x insert-char may be able to do something kinda similar. I know describe-char works great for identifying an emoji at least.

johannes1234321 3y ago

> I wonder if they're ever going to decide that enough emoji is enough, Really hard to do by this time. Since they allowed so many it's harder to say no. They have a burrito, but why no kebap, yet? They have person's playing basketball or golfing, but no person playing football (any variant) putting a stop to it gives an arbitrary set and restricts representing develoment in society (they have kick scooters which are modern, but what about the future successor?) But of course, the more they add the harder it is to use. These new directional ones can be hidden as variants similar to skin color etc is currently handled in UIs, but individual ones ... Deprecating also isn't an option. Text using those exists. They can't really break it.

olliecornelia 3y ago
https://emojipedia.org/stuffed-flatbread/ https://emojipedia.org/stuffed-flatbread/
- johannes1234321 3y ago
  Oh, missed that addition! Thanks! And it didn't come up in a name search.
DeusExMachina 3y ago
Welcome to the world where every idiosyncrasy is considered an identity worth representing, through emojis or other means, generating a never-ending breakdown of people into groups that feel excluded.
- olliecornelia 3y ago
  You’re fighting the good fight for braindead take representation.
- flangola7 3y ago
  Eh?
- roland35 3y ago

vasco 3y ago

Skin color emojis are the weirdest thing. I always find it slightly odd if someone changed them from the default yellow. Why would one care?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
realusername 3y ago
I also don't get it, it should be a system wide setting and not something the sender specifies, I don't see any point in having some additional info not representing the meaning.
- kemayo 3y ago
  There is meaning, though -- it's specifically saying something about the person sending it and how they chose to present themselves.
  - realusername 3y ago
    I don't think there's any value to that though, emojis were more neutral before they added a color skin to it. Instead of reading "I'm happy", now you have a combination of "I'm happy but also white" or "I'm happy but also black", I don't think that belongs here and I don't see any point to that. If you don't like how they appear, some system setting could be made for changing the overall colours to switch them all to black, white, green or any other colour.
- Sharlin 3y ago
  Why in heaven's name should it be a system wide setting? What sense would that make?
  - realusername 3y ago
    The whole feature doesn't make any sense in my opinion anyways. But if people are really sensitive to how emoji appears (a big if in my opinion since emojis are trivial but let's go with it), they could change them in the settings.

lapcat 3y ago

This is why I stopped using emoji 5 years and never looked back. It's a really stupidly designed system if you need operating system updates just to read text! I won't participate in that insanity anymore. Emoji have become trite, lazy, and practically meaningless, especially a few such as "face with tears of joy", "rolling on the floor laughing face", and "fire". Emoticons used to be a supplement for words, indicating the tone of the words, but now emoji are a replacement for words, the ultimate illiteracy. The reductio ad absurdum is the recent Canadian legal case where the court determined that a "thumbs up" emoji signals a binding contract.

post-it 3y ago
> The reductio ad absurdum is the recent Canadian legal case where the court determined that a "thumbs up" emoji signals a binding contract. Why do you believe so? If "Looks good," "Ok," and "Yup" signal a binding contract, as detailed in the case you're talking about, I contend it's perfectly reasonable for :thumbsup: to also signal a binding contract between the same parties. [0] Consider: > 5. For instance, on July 14, 2020, after discussing and agreeing on a contract with Chris Achter, I prepared a contract for the sale of 185 metric tons [sic] of durum wheat from Achter Ltd. to SWT for a price of $312.31 per ton [sic]. I signed the contract and then took a photo of it using my cell phone and sent it to Chris at 306-264-7664. I messaged: “Please confirm terms of durum contract.” Chris texted me back: “Looks good”. At the time, I understood this to be that Chris was agreeing to the contract and this was his way of signally [sic] that agreement. Achter Ltd. delivered on this contract without issue. A copy of the contract and text message is attached as Exhibit “B”. > 6. On September 11, 2020, after discussing and agreeing on a contract with Chris Acter [sic], I prepared a contract for the sale of 131 metric tons [sic] of durum wheat from Achter Ltd. to SWT for a price of $284.77 per ton [sic]. I signed the contract and then took a photo of it using my cell phone and sent it to Chris at 306-264-7664. I messaged: “Please confirm terms of durum contract”. Chris texted me back: “Ok”. At that time, I understood this to be that Chris was agreeing to the contract and this was his way of signally [sic] that agreement. Achter Ltd. delivered on this contract without issue. A copy of the contract and the text messages is attached as Exhibit “C”. > 7. On October 21, 2020, after discussing and agreeing on a contract with Chris Acter [sic], I prepared a contract for the sale of 395 metric tons [sic] of durum wheat from Achter Ltd. to SWT for a price of $308.65 per ton [sic]. I signed the contract and then took a photo of it using my cell phone and sent it to Chris at 306-264-7664. I messaged: “Please confirm terms of durum contract”. Chris texted me back: “Yup”. At that time, I understood this to be that Chris was agreeing to the contract and this was his way of signally [sic] that agreement. Achter Ltd. delivered on this contract without issue. A copy of the contract and the text messages is attached as Exhibit “D”. [0] https://www.canlii.org/en/sk/skkb/doc/2023/2023skkb116/2023skkb116.html https://www.canlii.org/en/sk/skkb/doc/2023/2023skkb116/2023s...

LordDragonfang 3y ago

Speaking of obvious candidates, somehow Unicode still doesn't include the "external link" symbol, despite it being used almost everywhere (and fitting the original mission of accurately transcribing text) https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2018/18303-external-link.pdf https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2018/18303-external-link.pdf

Name_Chawps 3y ago

I think every noun should have an emoji. Why not? I'm allowed to talk about lemons, but not limes? Why? Better that every noun has a single canonical representation.