In 2006, former editor Lynne Truss published a book called Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. The intended audience for the book was what Truss called "punctuation vigilantes": people who are picky about correct punctuation in everyday communication.

Even if you are not a punctuation vigilante yourself, Eats, Shoots & Leaves highlights an interesting issue with the English language: the way meaning can change based on punctuation. Take the title itself: the phrase "eats, shoots and leaves" can mean two different things depending on how many commas there are and where they’re placed. So if you write that a panda "eats shoots and leaves," you're describing its diet. But if you write that a panda "eats, shoots and leaves," you're describing a panda who is committing a gun-related crime and fleeing the scene after enjoying some sort of meal or snack. The words are the same. It's the punctuation that changes the meaning.

Truss argues, often in humorous fashion, that correct punctuation is a vital component of clearly written communication. These days, punctuation is still important in some contexts but in others it's become less so. When you and your friends and family text each other, for example, it's unlikely that you're taking the time to make sure all of your apostrophes and commas are in the right place.

Because of this, it can sometimes be difficult to convey meaning in a text. Text messaging and some popular forms of social media also lack other clues we often use to help us understand and communicate with one another, including body language, facial expression, and tone of voice.

To help with this, tech companies developed emojis as a way to fill in emotional cues in a typed conversation. Believe it or not, the little smiley faces and other symbols people often use in their texts and social media posts have been proven to change the way we perceive meaning.

Benjamin Weissman and Darren Tanner showed this in a study they conducted where they asked 106 participants to assign meaning to a phrase based on the emoji accompanying it. When the phrase "The cake she made was terrible" was punctuated with a smile or frown emoji, participants interpreted the sentence literally--the cake really was terrible!

The cake she made was terrible. 😊

The cake she made was terrible. ☹️

But when it was punctuated with a wink emoji, the emoji overrode the sentence's literal meaning and the participants interpreted the phrase as ironic.

The cake she made was terrible. 😉

Just like with "eats shoots and leaves," the words were the same. In this case, the punctuation was the same, too. Only the emoji had changed.

How people communicate changes constantly as technology continues to evolve and we find new ways to convey meaning. Next time you send a text or post to social media, think about how you use not just punctuation (assuming you do use it!) but also additional elements like emojis and hashtags to communicate what you mean and how that meaning might change if you chose differently.

Step 1: Create a simple sentence or statement that uses both words and emojis, hashtags, or other common elements of online communication to help convey tone or meaning.

Step 2: Now take the same sentence and, without changing the words, use different emojis, hashtags, or other elements of online communication to punctuate the statement in a way that changes its tone or meaning.

Step 3: Briefly explain the differences between the two sentences you've created in terms of tone or meaning.

Need help? Here is an encyclopedia that includes a comprehensive list of emojis and their commonly accepted meanings: https://emojipedia.org/