Tagemoticons

Face with Tears of Joy

For a deep dive into the world of emoji, check out Keith Houston’s new book, Face with Tears of Joy: A Natural History of the Emoji (Bookshop|Amazon). Emoji offer what’s called paralinguistic restitution, that is, restoring to written language...

Emoticons in Business

Is it appropriate to use emoticons in business emails? After all, you wouldn’t write a smiley face in a printed letter, right? Martha and Grant discuss the point at which you start using those little symbols in correspondence. Call it...

Unicode 6

Need to type something in Linear B or Mayan? Want to make Japanese emoticons? Now you can. Grant explains why the release of Unicode 6 has many typescript aficionados doing the happy dance. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...

Text-Messaging Research

When it comes to text messaging and its effect on English, the linguistic apocalypse is not nigh. Quite the contrary, in fact. Grant talks about some eye-opening research about text-messaging and teen literacy. This is part of a complete episode...

Emoticons (minicast)

A listener has a question about emoticons, those little sideways symbols you type to suggest emotions in informal electronic writing. You know, like using a colon, dash, and a capital P to stick out your tongue like this 😛 or using a colon, dash...