English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

13:00

@terdon yeah... it probably doesn't hurt the word's popularity among its users that it suggests the other thing.

Tonepoet

You know, as much as I hate to say it, 4chan's propensity to purge all data from their servers is rather terrible. As one of the largest anime communities online, derived in part from 2ch, and one with the power to popularize internet slang, I'd be able to point to them as a source for my claims about the emoji but it's highly probable that those posts don't exist anymore...

terdon

@Tonepoet I'm sure your claim is absolutely true and they've been using it that way for years. What we (I) were contesting was the claims relevance given the widespread usage of the other definition.

Tonepoet

One of the points of dispute is just how widespread the usage was before, so anything that would establish that the word was in relatively frequent use would help my position.

terdon

@Tonepoet I'm sure you're right and it was used that way in the 4ch community. The question is to what extent that can be considered frequent.

Tonepoet

13:18

Nobody can compile the data necessary to know because they delete their posts so often. Imageboard culture is going to be one big void in history when it comes to the usage trends of internet slang. It's somewhat of a shame.

terdon

Oh wow. Having now had the very dubious pleasure of visiting that site, I'm not sure anything coming from there should be taken into account. Eew.

Tonepoet

Then again, someimes it's a good thing to forget.

@terdon As much as I'd like to agree, because yeah, it is the proverbial septic tank of the internet, that's not quite how usage trends work. If you dismiss sources just because you don't like them, you might as well be a prescriptivist rather than an analysist. =P

terdon

@Tonepoet Heh, hoist with my own petard :)

Fair enough, you're quite right. That was just my first reaction to what appears to be an absolutely horrible corner of the internet.

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive title detected: Noun for 'Clusterfuck'? by Émelie on english.SE

Tonepoet

13:36

@Mitch Heh, you beat me to the censorship punch. I wanted to use an em dash instead of stars. XP

Mitch

@terdon Where is the tea-drinking sedate corner of the internet?

@Tonepoet I don't get the font changing markdown. Quotes for mentions is what quotes are for.

for emphasis, however, anything goes.

Tonepoet

@Mitch I think I heard of a website called English Language & Usage once...

I forgot the U.R.L. though.

Mitch

@Tonepoet Bunch of old biddies

But you know what they say...

englishstudent

@Tonepoet Morning. So what's the sophisticated alternative "annoyed"? "irritated"?

@Tonepoet Yep nag sounds good to me.

You are the walking, talking dictionary after all. :P

Tonepoet

@englishstudent By means of comparison, those are certainly much more urbane, but give me some time to think about it. XP

englishstudent

13:50

Sure. Take you time.

Mitch

@englishstudent Those are not particularly sophisticated/formal, but are not at all rude or informal. Both sound very appropriate for the situation. 'nag' might be too strong (though not as strong as 'jerk'). 'nag' is slightly gendered female.

englishstudent

@Mitch ok thanks. Did you just reply to two messages at once?

So I was going to write "Sure. Take your time, I'm lurking" then I remembered this:

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Tonepoet Well, 2 things. 1, 4chan users are a relatively small subset of English speakers overall, and their lingo changes very rapidly. While it'd be great if lexicographers could document every usage, it's really not reasonable to expect them to. Lots of other small communities have jargon/slang that's undocumented. I think you're overestimating the size of the 4chan community vis a vis its importance to English. 2: The anime subcommunity of 4chan is necessarily a smaller subset of 4channers.

englishstudent

So, the soccer mom I talk to on Skype with whom I’m doing the language exchange; yesterday when we had nothing much to talk about; she asked me casually “So what are you doing now?” I said “Nothing, just lurking for now, browsing etc.” She said “Oh no. Don’t use that word. It sounds sinister” and she wasn’t joking, at least her tone was serious. I told her it’s a perfectly fine word to use in a positive sense.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Third (okay three things) I was assuming you were referring to the entire English-speaking anime fandom when you were originally describing the usage of the word, and I'd still consider that group to be a relatively small group overall.

englishstudent

13:58

People don't know second and third meanings of a word usually.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@englishstudent lurking is a sinister word in most contexts.

englishstudent

> Lurking -- informal internet & telecoms to spend time in a chat room or on a social media website and read what other people have posted (= written or added) without posting anything yourself

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

It's a pretty specialized usage to mean "reading a message forum or chat room without participating"

englishstudent

yeah I know.

:)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

That definition doesn't give any advice on how common it is. I wouldn't be surprised if most people don't know it, even if many people do that very thing.

But I would disagree that "People don't know second and third meanings of a word usually".

That very much depends on the word and its context.

englishstudent

14:01

Ok. You are right. Some people maybe?

I didn't mean to generalize like that.

Tonepoet

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 You'd be right in assuming I'm not just talking about 4chan. You're right that they're not as significant for vis-a-vis english, but we're specifically discussing internet slang which is where they have disproportionately high influence. It's also worth note that in the earlier days of 4chan, most of its boards were dedicated to anime.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@englishstudent If you're learning English, and a native speaker tells you that a word connotes something, keep it in mind. It won't always connote that, but you need to be aware of it. Even for me, knowing the meaning you're using, I find it okay to type it but saying it aloud sounds weird.

englishstudent

I have never used 4chan. Do you use it @Tonepoet?

Tonepoet

@englishstudent My advice is do not visit it.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Tonepoet Yeah. again I'm not saying the anime usage was wrong, but I think it's a bit illogical to expect the unicode usage to give way to the anime usage.

@englishstudent I second tonepoet. 4chan is lately a cesspool of awful behaviour.

Tonepoet

14:10

@terdon Would you care to third this advice?

englishstudent

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yes I respect native speakers due to that, I mean I'm learning a language from them. By the way, does using the word "lurking" while voice chatting with someone look odd or weird?

I will be careful next time if that's the case lel.

@Tonepoet Ok. Got it! XP

Tonepoet

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 How so? How many other people were using the word emoji by 2010?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Tonepoet Probably only Japanese-language students. But post 2010 emoji, being the graphical font images imported from Japan, were suddenly on all the popular phones. Those things are unarguably called emoji, and the people who imported that usage had every good reason to do so, and suddenly everyone knew that those things should be called emoji.

It's even a really good word: it looks like a combination of "emotion" and "ji", which makes it easy to remember.

Expecting the unicode people, and subsequently Apple, Google, and all the phone manufacturers to suddenly call this thing something else just because the anime fandom has a more restricted definition of the word (more restricted than even the Japanese original) seems a little extreme.

@englishstudent Using the word in print in the context of lurking on a forum/chat room seems perfectly innocuous to me. Using it out loud (to me) brings out the creepy connotation, probably because I rarely hear/speak the word in the "forum" sense, and I'd expect that's true of most people.

englishstudent

Ah I see.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

It's fine to use it if you know what you're doing and you know you're right, but if your audience doesn't know the specialized usage, they'll bring along whatever baggage the word has even if you don't.

englishstudent

14:17

True.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I mean, one time a politician in the U.S. got flak for using the word niggardly, or maybe niggard, because people were unfamiliar with the word and thought he was using a different word. It's difficult to control what your audience brings to the conversation.

Tonepoet

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 We're not really sure if the japanese original definition was more restricted, and I'm not sure exactly what community Apple and Google are trying to appeal to by using a Japanese word when there was already an English equivalent in emoticon. Know your meme is attesting the cell phone company back to the very late '90s. I have a source that alleges usage to 2002 That's a rather narrow time gap.

Kit Z. Fox

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 ... but not impossible, she said, fiddling with some dials on her nefarious machine.

terdon

@Mitch Like I'd tell you!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Tonepoet Sure. It's possible that the Japanese phone companies extended the definition of the word, from the smiley-style to the graphical style, when they launched modern emoji. I have very little information on the early Japanese usage. But given the popularity of those graphics in Japan, I think the Unicode consortium's decision to include them in Unicode, and everyone else's subsequent use of them, to be completely logical.

Tonepoet

14:22

I think they should've just stuck with emoticon for English personally.

englishstudent

@Tonepoet You should take part in debate championships, I mean you have that fire. :P

I suck at debating a topic. At the end I'm like "Yeah whatever, each to their own etc."

Tonepoet

The only reason I can think to select a japanese word is to refer to a specifically japanese concept at the least, which this obviously is not. Selecting a japanese word also suggests trying to appeal to a certain demographic that's growing in popularity.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Tonepoet But emoticon already refers to the :) and (^_^) style things... at least according to wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoticon

It specifically calls out calling emoticons emoji is a mistake

> In Western countries, emoticons are usually written at a right angle to the direction of the text. Users from Japan popularized a kind of emoticon called kaomoji (顔文字; lit. 顔(kao)=face, 文字(moji)=character(s); often confused with emoji in the West) that can be understood without tilting one's head to the left. This style arose on ASCII NET of Japan in 1986

terdon

'86?

Wow.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Tonepoet I mean, are you disputing that unicode emoji weren't called emoji in Japan?

I recall quite clearly that smileys and such were called emoticons long before emoji arrived. Back then we didn't have emoji, at best we had wingdings which were a total hack.

terdon

14:29

What's ASCII NET, then? And how was it around, assuming it's some sort of email based board, in '86?

Ah, OK, usenet & co were around since 79-80, apparently.

Tonepoet

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 What I'm saying is, that kaomoji are also called emoji in japan.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Well, there were other online things besides the internet back in the 80s and 90s.

@Tonepoet which is as I suspected.

So in both English and Japanese, a typewritten smiley was created, then named (kaomoji, emoticon); then a graphical smiley was introduced, and the name emoji introduced, and the meanings blurred. Both typewritten and graphical ones are referred to, by some speakers, using the same words.

Tonepoet

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 The website I provided exclusively provides textual emoji.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

when message boards and chat apps started replacing typed-in emoticons with graphics, some English speakers started using the word "emoticon" to refer to those graphcs.

terdon

@Tonepoet It's also in Japanese, and if I translate it with google translate, it is no longer a useful source for words.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

14:37

I just don't think the word emoji ever had a strong enough distinction of "typed in japanese-style emoticons" that it could hold on to that meaning. The English word emoticon didn't have a strong enough grasp on "typed in ascii style emoticons" either... Just look at how terdon uses the word as equivalent to emoji, while for me it's not.

In short, I think you're asking for a distinction that isn't found in general worldwide usage, and it's a distinction that can't hold up given the way normal people use language.

Tonepoet

I've never been arguing for a worldwide usage though.

Just an English one.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Well, by world-wide I mean all japanese users and all english users.

the English-speaking anime fandom are the only users, as far as I can see, that had that restricted definition.

The OED dates emoticon to 1988:

> 1988 Logo Exchange Apr. 8/2 Funny faces, made of text characters, and seen when looking sideways, can punctuate sentences with humorous emotion. These symbol collections are also called ‘emoticons’... Emoticons are typically used in informal typed correspondence, such as electronic mail... Emoticon variations can reflect many different humorous themes... :-) humorous.. :-D smile!.. :-* oops!

There are lots of articles on the internet now where people explain that emoticons are not emoji. But then again, there are lots of people who will claim that they are the same.

Even in this conversation I've had to always spell it out just to be clear.... the usage isn't really settled here.

Interestingly, the OED claims that emoji, meaning pictograph, is found as early as 1928 in Japan.

> Origin: A borrowing from Japanese. Etymon: Japanese emoji.
Etymology: < Japanese emoji pictograph (1928 or earlier, perhaps after English pictograph ; compare pictograph n.), small digital image or icon used to express an idea, emotion, etc. in electronic communications (1990s) < e picture ( < ye (8th cent.) < Middle Chinese; compare e- in emakimono n., -e in maki-e n.) + moji letter, character (10th cent.: contraction of mon character, word + ji character, letter, based on a Middle Chinese compound; compare its Modern Chinese reflex wénzì writing).

I must say that the OED backs me up: smileys are emoticons are :), emoji are pictures are 😄.

(It's nice to be vindicated by authority!) :) 😄

so terdon, I'll be expecting you to correct your usage from now on.

terdon

Dang!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

14:52

;)

Tonepoet

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 If I may raise one minor point of dispute, we've been referring to the pictorial ones as emoticons too for the past decade or so. I've been a member of the Caves of Narshe form since 2004 and we've been using the word emoticon to refer to both as far back as I can remember.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Tonepoet yeah I mentioned that earlier.

I think it's funny that you are advocating for using the English word emoticon to refer to both typed-in and graphical smileys, while lamenting that the japanese word used to (for you) mean only typed-in smileys but now also refers to graphical ones.

incidentally, to me as a computer programmer, I bristle at the use of the word "emoji" to refer to non-unicode graphical smileys.

I prefer the word to be restricted to the emoji that are encoded in unicode or the older japanese character sets.

Some messaging apps have their own custom smiley graphics which are definitely not implemented using unicode or shift-jis emoji.

Are those still emoji?

Probably, to most people, now.

It gets confusing though, when discussing emoji. Like, I worked on a website where the bosses wanted "emoji" support.

How should that be implemented? Using a custom graphic-insertion library?

Using an emoji font?

What about the fact that Windows doesn't support emoji until Windows 10?

Do browsers support it?

Tonepoet

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That's not really the main nature of the complaint. I realize I hadn't made that clear, but the flow of the conversation hadn't developed in a manner when I could raise my point in that the chief problem is that emoji are distinctly japanese emoticons. The textual/visual distinction is a secondary point of dispute, and I've only been arguing that based upon English usage of the years past.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Tonepoet But modern emoji were directly imported from Japan!

I mean, that's literally why we have them.

Tonepoet

The unicode emoji are created from scratch...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

15:01

The initial batch were imported directly from the Japanese, to facilitate round-trip conversion between Japanese character sets and unicode.

Tonepoet

What about all of the others?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

All the new ones? Well, they were added as worldwide usage skyrocketed once worldwide phones started supporting them. But by then they were already called "emoji"

Unicode has, as one of its missions, the goal of being able to represent all the world's writing systems, including all the legacy character encodings. So they had to add Emoji, because otherwise they wouldn't be able to represent all documents created using those characters in Japanese character encodings.

Tonepoet

If I may also point out another thing, the word anime would just refer to any old animation in Japan. The English definition also refers to a distinctly Japanese origin and style.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Tonepoet Sure. And when Japanese-style animated cartoons were imported into English, we used the Japanese word for them... just like when Japanese-style graphical character glyphs were imported into Unicode, we used the Japanese word for them.

Tonepoet

That's certainly not accounted for in the Oxford Living Dictionaries definition of Emoji, or the visual/pictorial distinction.

Mitch

15:09

@englishstudent Yes. Yes I did.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Tonepoet well, it says "digital image or icon"

a series of typed characters is not, IMHO, a "digital image"

Tonepoet

I thought we were just talking about the japaneseness just now.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

well, they're not strictly japanese anymore.

they're world-wide.

Mitch

@englishstudent I agree with you. In the context of chat rooms, lurking is not sinister. But she may not listen in on chatrooms and may not be so accustomed to that usage, and so the sinister connotation is more conscious. Even in context 'lurking' does sound sinister, but is understood not to be so.

Tonepoet

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That strikes me as being just as strange as if the word anime just suddenly supplanted the word cartoon generally.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

15:13

@Tonepoet well, the word anime is already loaned from English to Japanese.

But there are historical precedents where a word was loaned somewhere, then came back changed and supplanted the original word.

I can't think of one off the top of my head though.

Tonepoet

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yeah, and their use had no bearing on what happened when we loaned it back.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Tonepoet Well, sure it did. They borrowed "animation" and made animations which had a particular style and which they called "anime". We borrowed the animations, and the style, and the word, and called it "anime". If "anime" style animations displaced all other forms of animation, then "anime" would quite likely displace "animation"

Mitch

@terdon I's just ruin everything, spilling tea, letting my scarf drag through the butter, getting scone crumbs on the front of my sweater.

terdon

Precisely. We don't let the riff-raff in, don't cha know.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@terdon ha, is that an intentional pun on cha ?

Mitch

15:16

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I agree entirely with that statement except for the minor change of adding a 'not'.

terdon

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Damn! No! I wish it were :)

Tonepoet

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Okay, so it did a little, but not to the extent where we have to use it exactly as they do is the point.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Which is why I use this as the basis of developing meaning in English.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Tonepoet Well, we have no reason to use it like they do. But with emoji, we have a good reason: unicode.

Mitch

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That's how I think of it.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Tonepoet In any case... the ship has sailed.

Tonepoet

15:19

Sigh.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

You might not like where it's going, but I think it's a stretch to claim that it had no good reason to go there.

Mitch

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That ship should be scuttled

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Mitch Good luck... most people won't scuttle a ship unless they don't need it anymore.

Mitch

Adding emoji to Unicode gave permanency to an infinite neologistic slang method. All the emoji items have meanings but sadly vague ones. All the rest of unicode is non-semantic (uh, except for hanzi/kanji). even Mayan and Egyptian are phonetic.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 they make good reefs.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

reefmoji

emojeef

Mitch

15:23

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Was my reasoning substantive?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 emoji should well be encrusted with layers of slime mold and calcification.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Mitch it had some kind of substance, anyway. I'll let the hazmat guys submit their report before further comment.

Mitch

because I don't like them.

englishstudent

So on a separate note, when people say "people are idiots" like that comment on the starboard, what does that statement make them? Because aren't they people too? I know it is supposed to be a joke but being a non native that statement to me sounds idiotic as hell. I could be wrong.

Mitch

My beef with emoji (beyond the slang/underspecified semantics)?

I find them hard to see.

That is, there is so much packed into the little image, I can't tell any of the details.

Tonepoet

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I'm not sure why unicode needs a new word other than emoticon. I mean no combination of characters would have a special meaning in the standard, however we might interpret them.

terdon

15:25

reefmoji!

Tonepoet

And we're probably going to have to say unicode emoji anyway to distinguish them from the general emoji oxford espouses.

Mitch

so all I see is a yellow face like thing and can't tell if it's smiling, winking, crying (maybe I see some blue) or vomiting (is that green? it looks bluish to me. what are they trying to say)

it's just as semantically vague as the emoticons. What is the nuance given by :P or =) or ;^)?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Tonepoet well, maybe to the people working in unicode, the word "emoticon" has the restricted meaning of typed-in smileys, and they don't consider "graphical substitutions of smileys" to be "emoticons", and would agree with the kaomoji/emoji distinction. Or maybe when they add a new character block, they like to name it after what it would be called natively, if possible, and emoji is what those are called.

Mitch

@terdon yeah, when inline, I can't tell if they've shaved or not. It's too small, so any subtlety is lost on me.

it's a dumb fad, that go the way of bell bottoms, vaping, and pop rocks.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Tonepoet well, like I said earlier. I like to restrict the definition of emoji to the japanese and unicode characters encoded in character sets, not the general case of images rendered inline in text. However, I realize that not everyone else uses that distinction and I don't think that distinction can hold.

Tonepoet

15:28

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 It's possible. The dictionary definitions currently available seem to corroborate that. It seems strange to me, since all of the software I saw that came beforehand did consider the two interchangable, and I would've supposed it's a similar kind of person who would work on the Unicode standard.

Mitch

except I've heard one can get pop rocks again.

terdon

@Mitch :P is the easy one. It's a smile with the tongue sticking out, so it's often used to indicate that you're taking the piss. As opposed to :) which is commonly used to mean you're joking, not angry etc.

@Mitch Vaping is anything but a dumb fad. It is a wonderful invention that should, unless the tobacco lobby and its ignorant minions manage to squash it, save millions of lives.

Mitch

@terdon so what's the difference between ;) and :P? Don't answer that. Anyway it's too vague.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Tonepoet I don't know if "all the software" that came beforehand considered typed smileys equivalent to graphical ones. They certainly were implemented a different way... graphical smileys were usually image substitutions, like <img src="smiley.gif"> inline in the text.

Tonepoet

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I edited that to qualify.

Mitch

15:31

@terdon you're inhaling microparticles with extra chemicals intended to get into your bloodstream. I'd rather have a full face tattoo of Winston Churchill's face

(which I don't)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

The thing is, when the tech was nascent, you would type in smileys and they'd upgrade to images. That was error-prone (sometimes urls would get corrupted) and the images were just html or some other kind of markup added to the document.

A lot of software didn't specifically call out those upgraded images as literally "emoticon". For one thing, the word "emoticon" didn't get used all that much.

terdon

@Mitch It's actually quite clear to me. One is a wink and the other a tongue-in-cheek, or mocking grin. I don't really know if I can define them, only that I use them quite differently.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

And I distinctly recall software that said things like "replace emoticons with images"

Mitch

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That's not how it still works?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

But I don't disagree that some people would refer to the typed-in smileys and their image replacements as "emoticons".

@Mitch well, in some cases, but in other cases people just use the emoji keyboard on their phone.

Mitch

15:34

@terdon But with the thousands of new emojis created with graphics and all sorts of nuances, that's a lot to learn with very little return.

terdon

@Mitch And you're free not to. However, the microparticles in question are rather well understood (I am referring to the basic vape of a nicotine solution plus propylene glycol for the vapor, not the random stuff you might find on the market) and known to be harmless. As opposed to tobacco (or any other) smoke which is known to be very dangerous.

Mitch

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 oh...well, that too sure.

terdon

Compared to regular cigarettes, there's just absolutely no question that vaping is immensely better.

Tonepoet

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That's a fair point. Emoticons were more often just called smileys.

terdon

@Mitch True. Personally, I will use :), ;), :P, >:), :( and sometimes :'(.

Mitch

15:35

@terdon not to be judgmental but it's all dumb.

:)

dang it that didn't get translated to an emoji of vomiting

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Tonepoet For some reason I can't imagine the unicode consortium adding a block called "smileys"

terdon

@Mitch I'd be hard pressed to argue that any addiction isn't dumb. Point is, one kills you and the other most likely doesn't. Not much of a competition there.

Tonepoet

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 In 2009 I couldn't have imagined they'd use emoji either. XP

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

"emoji" is just such a good word for them. It's shorter than "emoticon", sounds more fun, looks like it has "emotion" in it, and that's what they're called in Japan.

Mitch

@terdon no not addction. the behavior of switching from a stimulant device that turns out to be unhappy, to a device that looks like the unhealthy device (but isn't). it's cargo cult cool.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 emoticon sounds like robot love

terdon

15:39

@Mitch No, sorry. It is orders of magnitude safer. I've looked into this one. Sure, quitting would be even better but any alternative that allows smokers to easily switch to something that is so much less dangerous is absolutely a good thing.

And they don't look remotely like cigarettes.

Mitch

the latest hookah craze is also silly. they're just bongs (slightly less toxic than straight smoke from burning vegetable matter), plus the whole orientalism thing.

terdon

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

"vaping", ugh, I hate that word for some reason.

terdon

@Mitch A completely different proposition. That still has combustion and is therefore just as bad. Worse, probably, since you tend to inhale more and more deeply.

Vaping, on the other hand, is as close to just plain "safe" as it gets.

Mitch

@terdon I don't doubt the safety (though some news reports claim there are health issues, but that's probably the mothers of teenage sons who took up vaping to impress the locals.)

Tonepoet

15:41

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Maybe it's because you're used to and would prefer the word vaporizing. =P

Mitch

@terdon uh... yeah they do. they look like funny glowing weird cigarettes with funny weird smoke. like faux-futurist smoking for the Jetson's crowd

terdon

@Mitch They don't know shit. Frankly. I should look into this again, I guess, but I'd read all available scientific literature on the subject around 3-4 years ago and can assure you that anyone claiming they're dangerous is either misinformed or lying. There is no evidence suggesting danger and little reason to expect any.

Mitch

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 and there's that (not) going for it too.

terdon

@Mitch No they don't. Those are the poseur ones.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Tonepoet Maybe. I think it's because I hate what vaping is. Also it makes me think of vapid.

Tonepoet

15:43

Or maybe it's because we don't have the verb vape... well, actually, apparently we do now... oh goodness.

Mitch

@terdon so the non-poseur ones are like asthma inhalers?

terdon

The only real possibility of danger is that the liquids themselves are not well controlled. So what a manufacturer choses to put in them is anyone's guess. That could indeed be dangerous.

Tonepoet

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Vapid Voters Vape Vigorously.

terdon

@Mitch Or SimCity Arcologies, yes.

Mitch

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 yeah, vapid. exactly.

Tonepoet

15:43

I couldn't think of another agent noun that started with v.

terdon

I'm not saying it's a good thing. Just far, far, far better than actually inhaling smoke.

Tonepoet

Voter might've worked better..

Mitch

@terdon Oh yeah. the cool kids take the vaping juice and instead of vaping they ...

terdon

So it should be encouraged in any way possible.

Mitch

drip it into their eyes

Tonepoet

15:44

History has rewritten itself. >_>

Mitch

@terdon hey here's a tip for you kids while you get the eff off my lawn: just do something else. Why do you have to do a smoke-like thing at all?

terdon

@Mitch Because i) I'm addicted; ii) I like it. Of course quitting would be best, but a harmless method of getting my fix is the next best thing.

Mitch

@terdon what about patches?

what about brownies? (yes I'm pretty sure I'm mixing up all my drug knowledge)

terdon

@Mitch Much of the addiction is having something to fiddle with. Patches don't give you that. Electronic cigarettes give you something to do with your fingers and let you blow out "smoke" (water vapor, actually). So they are a very, very close analogue and so a very easy switch.

I just don't understand why anyone would be against a safer way of smoking.

Mitch

How about this kids, get stick ons that leave both a temporary tattoo -and- meds that transfer through the skin.

terdon

15:48

What, is it spite? Do people hate smokers so much?

Mitch

there. that's my marketing suggestion for the day.

@terdon Nicotine-infused Rubik's cubes.

There. Run with it.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@terdon yes. The world is their ashtray.

terdon

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Not if they switch to electronic cigarettes it isn't. Yet another reason.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I mean, sure, it's probably safer and less annoying to others.

Tonepoet

@terdon It's possible. There are many P.S.As. against smoking that tried to propagate that.

Mitch

15:50

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 And all of France? The world is their dog's toilet.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@terdon yeah. But they're still smokers, in some sense.

terdon

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 There's no "probably" about it. There is simply no comparison.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 So? They no longer use ashtrays, they no longer get sick, they don't stink and don't bother you. Why would you still object?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@terdon I will reserve judgement.

Mitch

Down with vaping! Down with the French! Down with French vaping dog toilets!

Tonepoet

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Smokers without smoke?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

15:51

@terdon years of prejudice ingrained at an early age.

terdon

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I am not making this up. I went through everything published on the matter. Meaning several peer reviewed articles and an FDA report. I am, quite truthfully, capable of making the claim that they're safe or, at the very least, that there's no evidence suggesting they're not.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@terdon as far as we know, currently, sure.

But also I think it's hand-waving to say "well, it's unregulated and who knows what manufacturers are putting in there" and then say "it's totally safe"

terdon

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Of course. Anything could prove dangerous in the future, so that's irrelevant. What we have here is, on the one hand, something we know for a fact to be very dangerous and, on the other, something we have no reason to believe is dangerous at all. Not much of a contest.

Mitch

@terdon How about crack? I mean the good kind of course.

terdon

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That's not handwaiving. That's a disclaimer. I am talking about the basic vape which is a very simple setup, consisting of a water-nicotine solution and propylene glycol which has been used to produce smoke effects for decades. Nothing new and nothing untested here. If you then go and buy random liquids, that's a different matter entirely.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

15:55

@terdon Well, here's where I disagree. I don't think we have "no reason" to believe it's dangerous. I think there are several good reasons: 1. we don't have information on the long-term effects of administering the drug in this way, 2. who knows what else is in there. 3. We don't know the differences in behaviour that this will cause; we do know that when people perceive an activity as being "Safe" they engage in that activity more recklessly.

Mitch

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 drinks tea recklessly

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@terdon What percentage of the vaping market would you estimate to be this simple setup?

Mitch

ANOTHER ROUND OF DARJEELING FOR THE HOUSE!

terdon

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 1. We do, actually. There is nothing special about the way the drug is being delivered, it's still the same method as always. And the drug, nicotine, was never the problem with smoking. While there is some evidence linking nicotine with cancer in mice, the effect is negligible compared to the two main players: free radicals and CO from imperfect combustion.

2. Again, in many cases we know exactly what's in there. not talking about random liquids.

Mitch

How dare you, you troglodyte. My lapsang souchong will crush your assam at Jeopardy any day.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

15:57

@terdon Well, it's not exactly the same delivery method. And sometimes those differences are important.

terdon

3. Yes, OK. But it's still better than the current option which we know for a fact will cause you harm. So "maybe, perhaps, it could be less safe" vs "absolutely certainly unsafe" is no contest.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 What's the difference? In both cases, the drug in inhaled in a gaseous suspension.

Tonepoet

Water vapor can serve to facilitate the growth of some nasty organisms if I recollect correctly.

Mitch

@terdon nicotine isn't terrible (except for maybe at high doses). I wonder if caffeine could be administered by vaping?

terdon

@Tonepoet That's not really relevant when discussing a system that is already mostly made up of water.

Mitch

Or... could nicoine be administered by steeping?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

15:59

@terdon well, in one case it's been burned, in the other, "vaporized". Are you sure the particles are the same in both cases? That they're exactly biologically equivalent?

terdon

@Mitch Yes. It could.

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