I treat them as a separate element to the text, and as such aren't really part of the punctuation or grammar, so I try to keep any at the end of the entire message to convey the actual expression I had making it. 😉
IMO, they generally replace a period, comma or exclamation when used. In the cases where it's a necessary question mark or something like that, I'd put the emoji after👍
Before (unless intended otherwise). Imagine the case in which the paragraph continues...
Roy fell when we were walking. 😂 It was kind of worrying.
vs
Roy fell when we were walking 😂. It was kind of worrying.
In the first one, it seems that you are laughing about the fall being worrying. In the second, the laugh is about Roy, and then the next sentence reads in a more neutral tone, which was my intent.
Maybe it doesn't look as nice, but to me it makes more sense.
An emoji is roughly equivalent to body language, facial expressions, and/or audible cues. They should be inserted wherever the intended action would occur.
An example: man, I laughed my ass off. 🤣
Would be acceptable, but: man, I laughed my ass off🤣. would be better because the laughter is integral to the sentence.
However; man, I laughed 🤣 my ass off. would also be acceptable because it is being used to demonstrate the action.
Something like: cats make my heart happy. 💓 😊
Would need it to be outside the sentence because it reinforces the message instead of being part of the message.
Emojis can be the equivalent of hand movements in a way, so where they get placed is about where you would place a gesture.
Before :). Otherwise I am getting angry ಠ_ಠ.
Smilies add context to the current statement. So a smilie afterwards just catches the overall vibe. 😌🤓😌
And this may be rude to someone. 🙄
It sounds like you don’t consider emojis appropriate. How come?
Have an urgent message you want to send to someone who is not uptight or a snob? In the same way in which people smile to be kind or be welcoming, I use emojis:
“Thanks for the file ☺️”
In the same way that people mirror emotions, I use emojis:
“I’m sorry about the presentation 😢”
“Yeah. Those reports can take quite a while to digest 😅”
In the same way that emotionally intelligent people are candid and therefore vulnerable and able to connect with others, I use emojis*:
“It’s taking forever to load 😭”
“I’m kinda nervous about tomorrow’s meeting 😬”
*Of course, my dumb ass is far from emotionally intelligent. I just strive to create connection.
I recognize that, at times, a social situation could seem to demand deference beyond emojis. At the same time, there are many situations where emojis could be appropriate. I am trying to let you see why and in what contexts someone would use emojis ☺️.
Also, there’s the whole Poe’s Law issue. Emojis can help with clarity.
So do you also expect everyone over 12 to always keep a pokerface in real life conversations, or is this rule confined to virtual spaces for some arbitrary reason?
We went from cavemen communicating through crude paintings on rock walls. We evolved complex speech over hundreds of thousands of years; leading to commerce, culture and civilisation itself.
We created great works of literature and began using language to carry our knowledge forward to each new generation, accelerating our growth...
...just to end up right back at fucking cave paintings.
Abraham Lincoln supposedly used an emoticon in one of his speeches from 1862 (though there is debate about whether it was an accident or added by the typesetter), and the guy who is credited with officially inventing the emoticon was a Carnegie Mellon Comp Sci professor. In introducing it, he explained that it could help clarify sarcasm versus serious comments in digital communications.
Tone isn't conveyed easily through the written word, sometimes an emoji helps to clarify how something is being said. 👍
You phrase all this as a negative but I think it is in fact a very beautiful way to look at it. A true shift going back to our bare roots of human literature.😃
I am not pulling your leg here. I do think it is actually a really interesting thought you put here. I just don't see it in a negative sense.
In fact, what are words if not deep-rooted human expressions? What would that make emojis in the first place?
We did not invent words to carry knowledge and improve oir culture, we invented writing, and guess what, alphabets and words only came in thousands of years after that. Before it we had cuneiforms and various forms of pictograms, so don't assume the superiority of strictly alphabetic languages over other forms of communications.
Let's take english as a language, its capacity to convey emotion is quite limited as it was not born a language for literature. Language evolve, new forms of communication are born and merge with existing ones and together they are more powerful. It's not like we will switch to emoji only, altough if an emoji only culture existed, they would frown upon our "inexpressive, needlessly verbose weird letters" just like you are doing. Don't underestimate the scare of cultural changes over convention choices
Cuneiform was a syllabic language. It had words and structure. It wasn't just "impressions of ideas" like pictographs. (Source: Near Eastern Archaeology was quite literally my university major)
So in no way am I referring only to "alphabetic" languages as you seem to imply. And Cuneiform is included in what I was talking about...language. Whether that's writing the epic of Gilgamesh or giving someone the worlds first bad yelp review.
Saying words didn't exist until indo-european alphabets emerged is frankly ridiculous.
I have a question for you, and it's a serious one.
What, precisely, do you think cave paintings were used for if it wasn't to carry knowledge forward to each new generation? Do you think they were just decorative?