I am a firm believer in good grammer, correct spelling and proper punctuation.
Programming needs that kind of accuracy. Type the case of a letter wrong, or leave out a semi-colon, and the code won’t run. It’s one of the most difficult things for beginners to get used to.
Be careful what you mean
That accuracy is also important for accurate communication. You can often figure out misspelled words, but punctuation changes the meaning. Think about this example:
"Let’s eat, Grandma" versus "Let’s eat Grandma"
There’s a fun infographic with more examples of poor punctuation.
And after leaving out the commas, we add a few emojis.
Emoji equivocation
Emojis were created to make it easy to communicate more information with a single character. It’s easier to type a single emoji than a few words. But is it easier to communicate?
Have you ever had someone add an emoji to a message that confused you? I have. And I’ve also wondered (after the fact) if I used the right emoji to convey something.
Psychiatrist.com conducted a small study. They concluded that people interpreted emojis differently, depending on age, gender and culture. That’s not really surprising.
A larger study by Preply surveyed 1000 Americans. This found that 78% of people surveyed have been confused by someone else’s use of an emoji. 1 in 3 have seen a misinterpreted emoji create an uncomfortable situation.
That doesn’t even take into account that emojis can look different on different devices.
Emojis in court
We like to think of emojis as a playful addition to a message. But they can have legal consequences.
A Canadian court held that a “thumbs-up” emoji sent in a text by a farmer was a valid acceptance of a contract.
In France, a man was sentenced to prison after sending a gun emoji to his ex-girlfriend. The court ruled it was evidence of a death threat. Of course, there was more to the case than just a single emoji.
Right now, in South Africa, emojis are relevant in the harassment claim against judge president Selby Mbenenge. An interesting article about this prompted me to write this post.
Good grammer, correct spelling and proper punctuation are important. Now I’ll have to add emojis to that list too. What do you think? Please share your views.