Very interesting idea. I remember reading that in visual spoken communications, only 20% is the actual words. The rest is tone of voice, body language, context, emphasis, expressions, ... all that stuff.

I don't know if 20% is correct, but I feel it's very close to it. I also think a lot of internet arguments happen as a direct result of miscommunication. Emojis are great, but they get abused to the point that HN filters them out. Perhaps allow readers to toggle if they want to see emojis or not?

• today at 2:02 PM

• Isognoviastoma

  today at 1:19 PM

  Easy to check: try to speak with someone talking foreign language you don't know and estimate what percentage of what they said you understood from tone of voice etc. I would guess it's less than 80%.

Something like this would be great for karaoke! Especially for the long held notes https://x.com/TheOisinMoran/status/1614435041764859907

• pimlottc

  today at 1:58 PM

  Another thing to look at would be how games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero show lyrics

Emojis absolutely have their place here. They can add tone, nuance, and a bit of humanity where plain text can feel flat.

• embedding-shape

  today at 12:20 PM

  I feel like emojis is the lazy persons way of adding tone, nuance and humanity, when you don't know how to do so by only writing. Don't want to imply it's wrong, it's valid to be lazy, especially when it comes to improving communication, but I find myself thinking "How can I make sure this comes across as the joke it is?" and after one or two minute I just end up slapping a wink emoji at the end and don't rewrite the text at all, as the lazy person I am.

  • jonplackett

    today at 12:22 PM

    When you only want to write w a single word back though + and emoji, there’s not a lot of space to add tone!

I've always wondered about this.

In Akan languages it is not difficult to conceive of how the same word can be written in different ways to convey another dimension.

Anyone who speaks an akan language will understand that each of these words below means good but with a slightly different emphasis.

papa papaaapa papapapapapa

What is the linguistic term for this concept?

• pegasus

  today at 12:26 PM

  Apparently, it's called partial reduplication or emphatic doubling.

  • realty_geek

    today at 1:09 PM

    Thanks, that is helpful.

    Chatgpt also explained the concept of ideophones which was helpful:

    https://chatgpt.com/share/69187b3e-7948-8001-9fea-2b4412d5a7...

The book Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud is a tremendous study in this area, Scott shows how you can add abstract meanings to words and pictures through illustration.

Consider learning Polish. Kurwa sounds exactly as it looks.