I messaged my colleague yesterday after his interview with Kim Hill to say how well he’d done.
He said he was terrifically anxious throughout and I expressed surprise – it certainly wasn’t obvious listening to him. He replied to that with this emoji:
This left me a bit confused. If you’re worried about transmission of infection, why would you ever do a high five? It’d be up there with shaking hands as a cause of PTSD for this poor guy, surely? (Our boss gave him a hug when he first returned to us a couple of months ago – he nearly passed out from shock). I replied back “Yes but with gloves on”, to which there was a confused silence. This left me wondering. My understanding was that only old people and/or religious zealots used this emoji to represent prayers (or thankfulness or any related emotion), viz this tweet from a few years back:
but maybe I’m wrong? I’m not the only one uncertain it seems:
I had a look at my phone keyboard and I thought the range of skin tones on offer provided a clue:
Surely this is a sign that the so called ‘folded hands’ emoji represents two hands of the same person – unless no one is ever expected to high five someone with a different skin colour – sad if true!
I must say I never use this emoji for exactly this reason. Sometimes you just have to use your words. Oh for the heady young days of texts/emails when emoticons were new and all you ever needed 😉