OT: Quick Break. New Words.

[Orangutan]

This is a bad idea because in the old, clearer world, if the reader saw "includes," he/she knew the list was partial. Now, if this takes hold -- and it seems to be doing so -- the reader has no idea whether the list is complete or not. Maybe it is, and maybe not. And a word that has a precise meaning will have lost its precision, and writers and readers will be the real losers.

Hence the lawyer-speak "including without limitation", which offends my sensibilities greatly.

Our language continues to evolve. I recently learned a couple new ones:

- An emoji is what we used to call an emoticon
​

I always thought they were two different things. An emoticon is the type of face you make with punctuation e.g. :-D and an emoji is one of these

This is of course complicated by the fact that many sites (this one included) will now automatically convert old-school emoticons to new-school emoji

Emoticons Versus Emoji