{"id":50302,"date":"2021-02-20T15:41:58","date_gmt":"2021-02-20T20:41:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=50302"},"modified":"2021-02-20T15:56:06","modified_gmt":"2021-02-20T20:56:06","slug":"explication-of-a-favored-emoji","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=50302","title":{"rendered":"Explication of a favored emoji"},"content":{"rendered":"

Within the last couple of years, some of my students expressed themselves by sticking this emoji — 😂\u00a0— at strategic places in their messages to me.\u00a0 Funny thing is that I never really knew how to interpret it.\u00a0 It looks like the face of someone who is laughing so hard that they are crying.\u00a0 Maybe that's not far off in terms of iconographic analysis, but I was never confident that I was correctly comprehending what the students wanted to communicate to me with this emoji.<\/p>\n

About a week ago, Zoom forced me — right as I was about to begin a class!! — to update my system.\u00a0 Naturally, when it was all over with the cursed passwords (which are one of my biggest trials in life these days [within the next few weeks, I have to change ALL of my passwords, which is being forced on me by UPenn]) and multiple stages of downloading, I was late for class, which gave me a huge amount of stress.<\/p>\n

With the new Zoom system, I noticed one big change, namely, in the past when I wanted to comment positively on a student's performance, I could choose from a thumbs up sign or clapping hands.\u00a0 After the download of the new system, I suddenly had more than half-a-dozen reactions, one of which was 😂.\u00a0 Although I wasn't sure what it meant, I decided to try it out, which led to a confession to the class on my part that I didn't really know what 😂\u00a0meant, followed by a brief discussion in which the students tried to educate me.<\/p>\n

The next morning, Selena Zhu wrote this more expansive explanation and sent it to me by e-mail:<\/p>\n

I love this emoji deeply, I think it wasn't originally intended to mean that you laugh so hard that you cry. It can also be used when you see something and you're feeling awkward, but cannot really say something to complain, similar to my mood when I see the Burgeranch poster as a Chinese. We call it \u201cg\u0101ng\u00e0 y\u00f2u b\u00f9 sh\u012b l\u01d0m\u00e0o de w\u00e9ixi\u00e0o \u5c34\u5c2c\u53c8\u4e0d\u5931\u793c\u8c8c\u7684\u5fae\u7b11\" (\"a slight smile when you feel awkward but want to remain polite\"). So if a staff at Bugeranch would come to me and say: \"OMG, look how amazing our Chinese poster is\", I'll be like:\"emmmmm….okay😂\u201c. You must get the sense, hahaha! Also, when I type \"k\u016b xi\u00e0o \u54ed\u7b11\" (\"cry-laugh\") in \"ji\u01cent\u01d0 p\u012bny\u012bn \u7b80\u4f53\u62fc\u97f3\" (\"simplified Pinyin\"), I can actually get this emoji. So I think this emoji tends to mean a situation which makes you \"k\u016bxi\u00e0ob\u00f9d\u00e9 \u54ed\u7b11\u4e0d\u5f97\" (\"can neither laugh nor cry; be at a loss; dumbfounded\"). And I actually use it a lot in my life!!!😂<\/p>\n

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Here are some funny pictures to illustrate it! (attached below) I hope you like them!!!!<\/p>\n

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Selected readings<\/b><\/p>\n