Essay Emoji By Kit Pancoast Nagamura	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
絵文字が大好き 携帯電話のメールで頻繁に使われる「絵文字」。「まじめな」ライターである筆者は当初、絵文字は幼稚だと切り捨てたのだが、メッセージに微妙なニュアンスが加わる便利さを知って、180度の方向転換をしたのだった。

When I first saw emoji, those little picture characters that come with most cellphones in Japan, I have to admit I thought I'd never use them. They consist, after all, of slightly childish colored hearts, zodiac signs, smiley faces, a barnyard of twee animals, and an odd assortment of other images.

As a "serious" writer, I couldn't imagine that tacking on a little prepackaged doodle to my messages would be desirable. It seemed lazy, or worse, witless. Who needs a little flamenco dancer or high-kicking playboy bunnies, to say nothing of the little pile of poop, I thought? I couldn't imagine that I'd want to tuck those into my correspondence.

How wrong I was.

The idea of emoji was supposedly developed from its predecessor, the emoticon -- a clever arrangement of type letters and punctuation marks to make a facial expression. These may seem like signs of our times, but Puck, a U.S. satirical weekly magazine, published some typographically depicted facial expressions as early as the 1880s, calling them "Studies in Passions and Emotions." Over the decades, people have devised versions of the infamous smiley face (emoji) to soften the somewhat impersonal appearance of a message, to indicate the text was meant in a friendly manner or as a joke.

When typing on a standard computer, it is easy enough to dash off additional words to help the receiver understand the tone of your message. However, when it comes to text messages composed by phone, pecked out on maddeningly teeny keyboards, a more efficient method of messaging is a boon.

Even if you have to go hunting for the perfect emoji, it is far simpler to type "Meeting today" and then insert a beet red angry face, rather than go into all the annoying details. Furthermore, it's nice to lighten up text messages with decorative seasonal and leisure emoji.

Literary types can showcase their creativity as well. A friend once wrote, "Something is fishy about him," referring to a colleague she didn't completely trust.

My only gripe is that I would like to tweak the default set of emoji for phones. For instance, I can live without the astrology symbols -- how useful are they, anyway? How many people need to know you are a Libra?

And, it annoys me that the standard emoji set includes every animal in the Chinese zodiac except the dragon. I love dragons. How can we text next year without a dragon?!

Also, don't get me started on the head massage and nail salon emoji, which make me suspect millions of people are living more blissfully indulgent lives than I.

Here's my current emoji wish list: a snail (for when I'm late), a nuclear symbol (for certain toxic people), a yoga instructor, an iris or samurai helmet for boy's day, a sumo wrestler, and, irony of ironies, a newspaper! Surely there must be ways I can download the missing emoji I desire, but I'm getting lazy now, and I want it done automatically! Maybe my son will give them to me for Christmas?(emoji)

Shukan ST: DECEMBER 2, 2011

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