You're listening to Away With Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I'm Grant Barrett.

And I'm Martha Barnett.

And Grant, I want to voice an unpopular opinion.

Okay.

I'm stealing myself.

Let her rip.

Okay.

My unpopular opinion is about emoji, those cartoon-like symbols of everything from

smiley faces to clowns to sushi.

I don't think we need any new ones.

Oh, wow.

We do have a lot, like 3,800 plus all the Unicode symbols, which aren't emoji but aren't words either, our letters.

That's right.

And we're going to be learning about some more emoji in a few weeks because new emoji are released every few months by what's called the Unicode Consortium. That's a nonprofit that sets the global standard for text and symbols across all digital platforms. And this year's additions so far have included a purple splatter,

which I kind of like, and a face with bags under the eyes, which could come in handy.

I don't know. Maybe that's a sign of the times. But, you know, I will admit that I do find

some emoji super handy for communicating meaning and nuance.

You know, I have a lot of laughing emojis in my texts and also hearts.

Do you have any go-toes that you read?

Yeah, I think you're, the hearts ones, I think even before emoji was incredibly common.

You know, the lesser-than sign and the three,

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