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Tech

There’s a Simple iPhone Feature That Defines All Those Weird-Looking Emoji

Siri explains it all.
Rachel Pick
New York, US
Image credit: Rachel Pick via

Whether or not you're a fan, there's no escaping emoji. They're everywhere—the Oxford English Dictionary even chose an emoji for its Word of the Year, the first time it's ever selected a pictogram. But some emoji are confusing or vague, especially to Western populations, since emoji as we know them originated in Japan and some are specific to Japanese culture.

But there's an easy hack to get Siri to name these unfamiliar emoji and clear up any confusion, so you can sally forth into the new year with advanced emoji knowledge.

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1. Have the emoji app installed on your phone, and follow their instructions to enable the emoji keyboard.

Amusing customer reviews of the Emoji app. Image credit: Rachel Pick

2. Go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Speech, then turn on Speak Selection. You can choose the voice you want to use, as well as the narration speed.

Image credit: Rachel Pick

3. Open any kind of text box, like a new note, and type the emoji that puzzles you. Highlight it, and scroll right through the selection options until you see "Speak." Tap it, and Siri will read you the title of the emoji.

For instance, this nut-looking thing is a "roasted sweet potato," according to Siri. (It looks unfamiliar to Westerners because the Japanese eat a different variety of sweet potato that is less common elsewhere. The more you know!)

It's not clear exactly where Siri pulls the info from. It appears to be somewhat related to Unicode's name for the character, but Siri occasionally editorializes. A light-skinned emoji is described by Siri as having "light skin tone," whereas Unicode describes the varied skin colors with numbers. It's possible that Apple built its own, simplified list of descriptions, that would make more sense being read aloud.

So go ahead and impress your friends. Become the Emoji Whisperer. And be sure to try it out on the turd emoji, so you can hear Siri say "smiling pile of poop," again and again.