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Emoji (from Japanese 絵文字, read えもじ) (pl. emoji) are the tiny pictures you can put on your texts. The word dates back to the early Japanese mobile phones. With the iPhone's plethora of icons, the word "emoji" became widespread, as it was what the keyboard was named. It is made of two components, 絵 and 文字, meaning "picture" and "letter" respectively. Therefore, any claims that tie the word to "emoticon" are etymologically WRONG. Many teenage girls put way too many emoji in their texts, resulting in more icons than text. Some clever people manage to draw pictures using emoji, or play Connect Four, Tic-Tac-Toe, or even Chess using emoji.
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