Should an emoji come before or after a full-stop? 🤔

Question

When I make a hilarious joke on social media it's easy to put an emoji/emoticon/smiley on the end. 😀

But sometimes I want to set the context and make a more reasoned argument over a paragraph or so. I might put something funny in the middle 😛. Should I put the emoji before or after the full stop? It seems no matter which way round I write, it just looks wrong to me. Here, the emoji makes the period feel a bit orphaned.

The alternative is to put the emoji after the full stop. 🤔 But when I follow this with another sentence, it feels like the emoji is now attached to the latter rather than former sentence. I can't win.

I particularly can't win when I need to put more than one emoji in a single paragraph 😧. I easily end up with an inconsistency - some before the period, some after. 🤯

Yes, I might be being slightly pedantic about this, but getting my grammar right on even informal writing is important to me. Get it wrong, and one can look like a clown rather than act like one.

Answer 1

There is no real grammatical rule for this and the very fact that you are using emoji shows that grammar probably isn't very important.

That being said, from what I see on social media, most people use emojis sort of like punctuation, not text, putting it at the end of a sentence instead of a period/exclamation point. Example:

Today was a great day 😀 I am happy 😛

Answer 2

I have an insight that might or not help you :

I once had the very same question, but for my native language: French. I sent a mail to the "Académie française", which is the french official language institute.

After some days I got a very pedantic response telling me that I should not use emojis in any sentence as they were a display of my lack of ability to convey my emotions using my poor vocabulary.

I was not pleased. But this is an official answer for French.

Answer 3

Emoji is new and I believe there haven't any grammar rules related to emojis. You can put it before, after, or even as a full-stop.

If you ask me, I prefer to put it as a substitute of punctuation marks. However, I sometimes put it before punctuation marks, indicating that the emoji is still part of the sentence (describing that sentence).

Example:

I didn't brush my teeth this morning 😅.

God, I miss movie theaters 😟 I hate this pandemic 😡! When will it end?

I am the one who ate your leftovers 😝

I also sometimes think emojis are like phrases you use in parentheses, but as images.

Hello 🖐️, guys!

Answer 4

A sentence is made up of words, hence Emoji should have no place in them. Putting them after a full stop is the most sensible option. Writing out a sentence, then inserting an Emoji, then the full stop interferes with grammar rules, there will be an ugly space between the last word and the full stop. An Emoji at the end of a sentence should not be seen as part of the sentence, but more like a meta element, conveying a feeling that the preceding words evoke in the writer.

The alternative is to put the emoji after the full stop. 🤔 But when I follow this with another sentence, it feels like the emoji is now attached to the latter rather than former sentence.

I disagree here, it still feels attached to the first sentence, probably because in general Emoji are rarely placed before the words they are supposed to characterize.

I have no data or references for any of this. 🤷‍♂️

Answer 5

As someone who used emoticons and kaomoji before emoji became widely used, I tend to put emojis where I would put an emoticon or kaomoji. For me, that tends to be either after punctuation or in place of punctuation, and I've seen many people who did/do the same :D But I've also seen many people who put an emoticon or text face before punctuation. ^^;

I think that emoji that are illustrative should be put next to their corresponding words (if the emoji aren't outright replacing the words), and if those words are at the end of a sentence and there's another sentence afterward, then I think the emoji should go before the punctuation so that the emoji is not separated from the word it's illustrating.

For emoji that are more like gestures (like their own individual messages--thumbs up, the thinking face, etc), if I don't use them to replace punctuation entirely, then I put mine after punctuation for two reasons:

1. I see them as akin to punchlines or self-reactions to whatever I just said
2. If punctuation is present, then I delay the finishing tone (the falling tone when you finish an arbitrary statement in English) in my head until I see the punctuation, and I don't want other people to read my sentences with unfinished tones

I also don't see post-punctuation emoji as attached to the next sentence, but I can definitely see why others might see it that way.

For further reading, something off the top of my head is Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch, which is a fascinating read in general and has a chapter titled "Emoji and Other Internet Gestures". Lauren Gawne helped greatly with this chapter. McCulloch is a linguist and Gawne is a linguist who does research on gestures, which are also called emblems. I haven't looked at Gawne's research separately, though; I've only read McCulloch's book.

Answer 6

Inspired by MattOnyx who found the answer for the French language I decided to look at advice for the Dutch language. Luckily the answer was easy to find: the "Nederlandse Taalunie" (Dutch language union) who develops and stimulates the policies for the Dutch language has a website called "taaladvies" (language advice). Here you can find the following article:
https://taaladvies.net/taal/advies/vraag/1716/plaats_van_emoticon_of_smiley_in_een_zin_of_tekst/

The answer here is: if you post the emoji after a sentence it comes after the full stop. There has to be a space before and after the emoji. Examples here are:

• We booked a weekend to London! 😄
• You have a lovely child! ❤️

You can also use them within a sentence:

• We are going to London 🙂 and booked three musicals! 😃

They make it clear the these guidelines are for all types of emoticons and smileys: both the 'western' :-) as well as the eastern ^_^ and images such as the heart ❤️ emoji.

You can also put a punctuation mark after a smiley, although that can be confusing:

• Linda will start a job in London :-/, but luckily we are going on a trip first.

Last but not least: they tell you that you can use them in informal written language, and that they don't belong in newspapers, magazines, or formal web texts.

Answer 7

I'm going to take a stab at creating some rules for this which - of course - are completely made up and meant to be broken. This is a community wiki: please contribute!

1. If the punctuation is a full-stop, you can replace it completely with an emoji

I went to the cinema today 🎥 The movie was great 😄

This works because people often leave off full-stops in sentences in texting anyway

2. If the punctuation used modifies the sentence (e.g. "!" or "?"), and the sentence ends the line, then the emoji goes after the punctuation:

This is the coolest!!!! 👍👍👍👍

3. But if the sentence doesn't end the line, then the emoji goes inside the punctuation:

This is the coolest 👍👍👍👍!!!!! But it's also not cool 😞

I'm not 100% sure about rules #2 and #3 and would love feedback.

4. Some emoji can replace some punctuation. For example, 🤔 can replace "?":

Do you think it's going to rain tomorrow 🤔

Some of these are more obvious than others:

Wow is that cool❓

Here the question mark is a modifier for the sentence, but in:

Which do you prefer 🐙🌽

The 🐙 and 🌽 emoji are choices and not punctuation, so they count as words. The question mark here is implied.

Other emoji cannot be used to replace punctuation (it's unclear if the "🚫" is answering the question here)

Do you think it's going to rain tomorrow 🚫

5. Emoji used to emphasize through repetition are treated as part of the preceding word:

Do you think 🤔 it's going to rain 🌧 tomorrow?

6. If emoji are part of a quote and are punctuation, they go inside the quote (this is vs some guidelines in English which put the punctuation outside the quote). You can then have another punctuation symbol outside the quote:

"I am very cool 😎", she said.

Then he said, "I am also very cool 😎".

Answer 8

The emoji is the punctuation. Regardless of what rules we might try to put on chat grammar, the zeitgeist will decide in the end. It does exactly what punctuation would do in many cases. It can end the sentence, express your excitement or confusion, as well as communicating that you're asking a question.

Answer 9

I would say an emoji does not belong in the middle of a paragraph any more than it belongs in the middle of a sentence. You could always start your new sentence on a new line after the emoji so it would always it would be like the first case you mentioned

In terms of parts of speech I would say an emoji is closest to an interjection. So put it anywhere you would normally put 'YAY' or 'BOOM'.

Answer 10

There are two cases here:

One if emojis in isolated sentences within a chat. In this case the stop is usually omitted, and the emoji is just at the end of the sentence. Not before, or after, or replacing it, because there is not a point anywhere.

The second case is the less common use of emojis in a paragraph, with full sentences, stops and grammar. In this case, they should go before the full stop or any other punctuation mark. I am basing this answer in the common usage of the question/exclamation mark inside two parentheses: (?) and (!). This is not very widely used, and is ugly, but it exists and have done for some time. They are used in a way similar to an emoji, and are written before the punctuation mark.