Its original meaning: Well this is another sleeping emoji, believe it or not. And the tear is not a tear but is instead dribble. So it's a sleepy drool face, essentially.

By contrast, gestures and emoji don’t break down into smaller parts. Nor do they easily combine into larger words or sentences (unless we’re using a clunky version of the grammar of our language).

Finally, an emoji to represent us all is coming soon: An exhausted face with bags under its eyes. It’s one of eight new emojis that will appear on smartphones and computers next year, which also ...