>> The easiest thing appears to be to not call the
items emoji.
>> I opine that a new word is needed to mean the
following.
>> A character that looks like it is an emoji
character yet has precise semantics.
> So, like, a localizable sentence character?
Well, a localizable sentence character with an emoji-like symbol would indeed
be an example of such a character.
Yet not every character that looks like it is an emoji character yet
has precise semantics would be a localizable sentence.
Indeed, not every localizable sentence symbol would look like an emoji
character. My research has used symbols 23 units in width by 7 units in height.
For example, please consider an emoji symbol to mean "railway station" and, for
example, please consider an emoji symbol to mean "peppermint tea".
If, for example, an emoji symbol that starts off to mean "railway station"
became used to mean "transportation station" then the way to express
specifically a railway station as an emoji rather than expressing just a place
that may be either or both of a railway station and a bus station would become
lost.
If, for example, a symbol that starts off to mean "peppermint tea" became used
to mean "herbal tea", then the way to express specifically peppermint tea as an
emoji rather than expressing just a cup of herbal tea that might be peppermint
or one of many other flavours of herbal tea would become lost.
The emoji characters for food allergens are not localizable sentences, yet they
do need, in my opinion, precise definitions and should be encoded in a separate
block and given a name not as emoji but as some other name that combines them
looking like emoji yet emphasises the precision of their definition: maybe they
should be double width so as to avoid confusion: maybe each glyph should
include a surrounding landscape format ellipse so as to emphasise their
difference from ordinary emoji.
> Something that has a
precise, sentence-level meaning that is not linguistically
determined? We aren't doing those here, as far as I know.
Well, I am not a linguist and I do not fully understand that question or the
comment that follows it.
I have just tried to state a problem that I feel exists and hope that people
who are expert in such matters can consider it and hopefully find a solution.
William Overington
30 July 2015
