Archive for Linguistics in the comics
Space v. Time in the grammar of emojis
Benjamin Weissman, Jan Englelen, Lena Thamsen, & Neil Cohn, "Compositional Affordances of Emoji Sequences", 12/19/2024:
Abstract: Emoji have become ubiquitous in digital communication, and while research has explored how emoji communicate meaning, relatively little work has investigated the affordances of such meaning-making processes. We here investigate the constraints of emoji by testing participant preferences for emoji combinations, comparing linearly sequenced, “language-like” emoji strings to more “picture-like” analog representations of the same two emoji. Participants deemed the picture-like combinations more comprehensible and were faster to respond to them compared to the sequential emoji strings. This suggests that while in-line sequences of emoji are on the whole interpretable, combining them in a linear, side-by-side, word-like way may be relatively unnatural for the combinatorial affordances of the graphic modality.
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Euler the sailor?
Todays' xkcd:
Mouseover title: "It works because a nautical mile is based on a degree of latitude, and the Earth (e) is a circle."
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Geometriphylogenetics
Among the new phrases…
Today's Tank McNamara:
According to the NFL, a "hip drop tackle" "occurs when a defender wraps up a ball carrier and rotates or swivels his hips, unweighting himself and dropping onto ball carrier’s legs during the tackle". And I would have more or less guessed that meaning, before getting the authoritative definition.
A Sandwich Helix, on the other hand…
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