Skip to content
ADVERTISEMENT
Sign In
  • Sections
    • News
    • Advice
    • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Student Success
    • Technology
    • Transitions
    • The Workplace
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Special Issues
    • Podcast: College Matters from The Chronicle
  • Newsletters
  • Events
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle On-The-Road
    • Professional Development
  • Ask Chron
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Professional Development
    • Career Resources
    • Virtual Career Fair
  • More
  • Sections
    • News
    • Advice
    • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Student Success
    • Technology
    • Transitions
    • The Workplace
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Special Issues
    • Podcast: College Matters from The Chronicle
  • Newsletters
  • Events
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle On-The-Road
    • Professional Development
  • Ask Chron
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Professional Development
    • Career Resources
    • Virtual Career Fair
    Upcoming Events:
    College Advising
    Serving Higher Ed
    Chronicle Festival 2025
Sign In
Lingua Franca-Circular Icon

Lingua Franca

Language and writing in academe.

Emoji Are Ruining Grasp of English, Says Dumbest Language Story of the Week

By Geoffrey K. Pullum April 23, 2018
emoji

The award for the stupidest story about language this week (and every week has its candidates) must surely go to the British newspaper

To continue reading for FREE, please sign in.

Sign In

Or subscribe now to read with unlimited access for as low as $10/month.

Don’t have an account? Sign up now.

A free account provides you access to a limited number of free articles each month, plus newsletters, job postings, salary data, and exclusive store discounts.

Sign Up

emoji

The award for the stupidest story about language this week (and every week has its candidates) must surely go to the British newspaper The Telegraph for its story headlined “Emoji ‘ruining people’s grasp of English’ because young rely on them to communicate.”

Perhaps you’ve noticed how the stoplights during your evening commute (the red disk symbolizing “stop,” the green one meaning “go”), not to mention those pictorial road signs (🚸, etc.) make you all but unable to speak to your family in coherent sentences when you get home?

No. Nor have I. Can the headline really be serious?

Not serious enough to correspond to the content, it seems. “Over a third of British adults believe that emoji are to blame for the deterioration of the English language, according to new research,” the article goes on, revealing that the finding is not that emoji are ruining people’s grasp of English, but rather that (some) British adults say they think that’s happening. Quite a difference. But let’s press on. Who are the social and linguistic scientists responsible for focusing the spotlight of research on this mass delusion?

YouTube, the video sharing website owned by Google, commissioned a study where 2,000 adults aged between 16 and 65 were asked about their views on the current state of the English language.

Ah, so it’s survey-takers working for a company that just happens to host thousands of brush-up-your-grammar videos! They asked the adults in question whether or not the English language is going to hell in a handcart, and whether or not young people today are messing everything up and don’t deserve to have nice things, and people said yes.

Apparently “more than half of British adults are not confident with their command of spelling and grammar,” and “three quarters of adults are now dependent on emoji to communicate with each another [sic], as well as spell checks and predictive text.”

Dependent on emoji! Heartbreaking. Unskilled at the difficult art of putting subjects together with predicates to form declarative sentences, they just fumble around in the emoji box on their smartphone screens, desperate to find some way of getting their inchoate thoughts across. And kids are responsible for this.

Thinking back, I recall that apropos of something perhaps slightly embarrassing, my friend and neighbor Sarah recently sent me a message containing nothing but three emoji:

🙈 🙉 🙊

I read this at the time as an amusing (and very compact) way to say “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.” I figured that she could in principle have typed out “Fear not, I am not a gossip, and no word of this will escape my lips,” but had decided on something shorter and wittier.

In light of the Telegraph story, I now see that I should have been more concerned for her: Poor Sarah sent those monkeys because she is losing her capacity to form sentences! (She sees her young nieces fairly often; they must have corrupted her.)

The writer responsible for The Telegraph’s piffle, this dish of journalistic 💩, is Camilla Turner, who holds the title of education editor.

She fortified her argument with a grim-jawed quote from a fellow alarmist, Chris McGovern, who used to be a government adviser and now chairs something called the Campaign for Real Education. He said:

There has unquestionably been quite a serious decline in young people’s ability to use the English language and write properly punctuated English.

We are moving in a direction of cartoon and picture language, which inevitably will affect literacy. Children will always follow the path of least resistance.

Emoji convey a message, but this breeds laziness. If people think ‘all I need to do is send a picture,’ this dilutes language and expression.

Poppycock. Throwing in a smiley face 😀 or a monkey 🐒 or a picture of a saxophone 🎷 is neither a symptom of losing syntactic competence nor a cause of it. Essentially all emoji are just pictures of things that would be denoted in text by nouns; you still need to spell out verbs if you’re going to actually say anything.

Haven’t these hyperbole-mongers noticed that young people today write to each other more than young people have ever done in all of human history? Their texting, tweeting, WhatsApping, Snapchatting, Facebooking, and Instagramming may have psychological downsides (like cyber-bullying), but dropping the occasional pictographs into their prose is not going to strip them of the capacity to form sentences. Anyone who believes emoji are having even the slightest effect on English syntax is an utter 🤡.

We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
Share
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Email
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

More News

Vector illustration of large open scissors  with several workers in seats dangling by white lines
Iced Out
Duke Administrators Accused of Bypassing Shared-Governance Process in Offering Buyouts
Illustration showing money being funnelled into the top of a microscope.
'A New Era'
Higher-Ed Associations Pitch an Alternative to Trump’s Cap on Research Funding
Illustration showing classical columns of various heights, each turning into a stack of coins
Endowment funds
The Nation’s Wealthiest Small Colleges Just Won a Big Tax Exemption
WASHINGTON, DISTICT OF COLUMBIA, UNITED STATES - 2025/04/14: A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator holding a sign with Release Mahmud Khalil written on it, stands in front of the ICE building while joining in a protest. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators rally in front of the ICE building, demanding freedom for Mahmoud Khalil and all those targeted for speaking out against genocide in Palestine. Protesters demand an end to U.S. complicity and solidarity with the resistance in Gaza. (Photo by Probal Rashid/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Campus Activism
An Anonymous Group’s List of Purported Critics of Israel Helped Steer a U.S. Crackdown on Student Activists

From The Review

John T. Scopes as he stood before the judges stand and was sentenced, July 2025.
The Review | Essay
100 Years Ago, the Scopes Monkey Trial Discovered Academic Freedom
By John K. Wilson
Vector illustration of a suited man with a pair of scissors for a tie and an American flag button on his lapel.
The Review | Opinion
A Damaging Endowment Tax Crosses the Finish Line
By Phillip Levine
University of Virginia President Jim Ryan keeps his emotions in check during a news conference, Monday, Nov. 14, 2022 in Charlottesville. Va. Authorities say three people have been killed and two others were wounded in a shooting at the University of Virginia and a student is in custody. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
The Review | Opinion
Jim Ryan’s Resignation Is a Warning
By Robert Zaretsky

Upcoming Events

07-31-Turbulent-Workday_assets v2_Plain.png
Keeping Your Institution Moving Forward in Turbulent Times
Ascendium_Housing_Plain.png
What It Really Takes to Serve Students’ Basic Needs: Housing
Lead With Insight
  • Explore Content
    • Latest News
    • Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Professional Development
    • Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Chronicle Intelligence
    • Jobs in Higher Education
    • Post a Job
  • Know The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • Vision, Mission, Values
    • DEI at The Chronicle
    • Write for Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • Our Reporting Process
    • Advertise With Us
    • Brand Studio
    • Accessibility Statement
  • Account and Access
    • Manage Your Account
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Group and Institutional Access
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
  • Get Support
    • Contact Us
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • User Agreement
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
1255 23rd Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037
© 2025 The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education is academe’s most trusted resource for independent journalism, career development, and forward-looking intelligence. Our readers lead, teach, learn, and innovate with insights from The Chronicle.
Follow Us
  • twitter
  • instagram
  • youtube
  • facebook
  • linkedin