Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for January 03, 2025

Cute joke, but when you google ‘prayer emoji’, you get what Pig was talking about.

In the early days, the only Facebook option was “Like”. There were times when Like felt wrong.

Several sources say that’s “folded hands” and usually represents gratitude or prayer depending on context. None of them (except Pastis) seem to think they’re high-fiving.

Tell him you were high fiving them joining heaven. Worth a try!

Just say that the two people were playing London Bridge, because his mother is “crossing over” to Heaven.

Sounds like something a left winger would send.

Pig. Message received. ☄️☄️☄️

Made me laugh.

No. Rat is wrong. For it indeeds folding hands emoji and not high five. Some emoji sets was even depicting it as a man with folding hands.

Friend’s reply: Totally. She was horrible.

Human evolution… a million years developing language to end miscommunicating with signs like monkeys… good job! :D To be fair, we miscommunicate A LOT with language anyway :P

The caring emoji is much better.

Apparently, the alphabet was too tough, so now we’re going back to using hieroglyphics

We’ll see if the “high-five” is appropriate once the will gets read….

Because calling or sending an actual card takes way too much effort.

Emojis – when you care to send the very least.

This comment is intended for everybody on this comment thread, and everybody in the world; please, please, please don’t misinterpret this!!!! Thank you very much for your kind thoughts and good wishes!!!! You are all champions and heroes!!!! Good luck and God bless in the new year!!!! Dan aka…ps now, unfortunately, I have to go and seek medical attention once again, sadly, I never get real human attention unless my thingies a.k.a. body parts are broken, hurt, or swollen….WAH!!!!

My understanding is that that emoji was originally intended to depict “gassho”, the position of hands when bowing, and connoted gratitude.

I prefer to use

B.C.N.U

I hate to sound like an old man telling people to get off my lawn, but if an internet friend says his mother died, type some WORDS.

O.K. Did I high-five my cousin in Ireland after commenting on his FaceBook page on the death of his father? ( I really did add this emoji to a note I just sent him – minutes before I opened GoComics ) I hope he won’t think me “cold and uncaring”.

For the passing of a Loved One a friend calls or shows up in person. You do not send a text ;-(

Who knew emojis could be so hard to read?

Like you, Rat?

Predictive text will show that emoji when you type “prayer”

nope, try clueless. ;)

I use that particular emoji to mean “thanks.”

Perhaps Rat is the only one who thinks that’s a “high five” emoji rather than a praying hands emoji … or at least, one of the few. Everyone I know uses it for praying hands.

It’s a prayer emoji. As is often the case, Stephan has it wrong.

I used to send my friends a thumbs-down emoji to express my sorrow whenever a family member of theirs passed away. For some reason, I don’t have any friends anymore.

She might have been ill and in pain. Sometimes death can be a relief.

This made me laugh.

Rat quit messing with Pig or someone will high 5 you upside your head

“I’m high fiving a million angels!”

Yeah, I’ve never seen it as a high-five. I’ve seen it as a prayer.

When I do a text search for High Five or Prayer the same emoji shows up for both. But somehow the Microsoft version looks like two male appendages pressed together. >

I wanted to give Pig a better way to spin this as a positive, but anything I suggest might be tone deaf. Just apologize for it is the best of all the bad ideas.

Ironically, most mothers are older than their kids.

A few years ago,there was an animated movie starring talking Emojis that was a miserable flop.

SO WHY DIDN’T THAT END T HINGS ONCE AND FOR ALL???

Two people with the same shirt high-fiving with opposite hands?

It is why I do not use them. I do not want to end up like the people in “Fahrenheit 451”, where no one is allowed to read text, but only look at pictures.

Isn’t a prayer a high-five with God?

Emojis seem to have proliferated to the point of pointlessness. I never understood in Excel what a building falling over was supposed to represent. :)

People seem to think the entire sentiments of a Hallmark greeting card can be encapsulate din mutually-understandable form by a few strokes of ink.

(Righteously confused smiley-face emoji here)

That’s news that merits an actual written response, not a quick shorthand (no matter what it may be).

Oh Rat, do you HAVE to upset him every day?

to be fair, maybe he inherited a lotta money!

Emogis always mess me up.

I never use emojis, because (a) as we see here, they may mean different things to different people, and (b) as my vision gets blurrier, I have a hard time making out the details, so I could easily send the wrong one if I was in a hurry. So, if you are communicating with an older person like me, please use words…thanks.

Years ago, when emojis were becoming a fad, I was wandering through a department store that had a bin full of little throw pillows with emoji designs. As I passed by, an older grandmotherly woman was saying to a younger woman “Oh, I should get this one for John! He loves chocolate pudding!” The younger woman said “Um, that’s not chocolate pudding.” That’s when I knew that emojis were not for me…

I recall hearing of an instance where someone texted a relative regarding the death of their aunt and added LOL thinking it meant “Lots Of Love”.

Is this true!?!?!

It’s hands palm-to-palm. The meaning is in the eye of the beholder (or of the typist) based on your culture and religion, etc. It canmean namaste (Hindu greeting), añjali mudra (Buddhist greeting), a wai (Thai greeting and respect), thank you (Japan), or prayer. It is rarely used for high five. There’d be more of a case for calling it a high five if the sleeves were different colors.