Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why does the "chart increasing" emoji show in red?

blog.emojipedia.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 122 posts

Re: Why does the "chart increasing" emoji show in red?

#71

Post by martyvis »

goodcanadian wrote: post #33
pdabbadabba wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting! Similarly, in English we would say that a business was "in the red" if its expenditures exceeded its income. (Or something like that. It's a colloquialism, so it doesn't really have a specific technical meaning.)

This is because losses were traditionally written in red ink back when books were done on paper. Profits were in black ink which is why profitable businesses are sometimes referred to as "in the black."

Typewriter ribbons that were 2 colours were always black and red. (I presume that was a carry over from when your main ink would have been black or possibly blue, and the alternative would have been red).

As your normal credit entries would have been black, if the "bottom line", the sum of your accounting book column was negative, showing a loss, you would emphasize it with the red type.

Re: Why does the "chart increasing" emoji show in red?

#73

Post by sgustard »

culi wrote: post #46
otras wrote: post #17

For a fun experiment, try Google finance with the Japanese language tag ( https://www.google.com/finance/?hl=ja ). Even knowing about the switched colors, it still fools my eyes. Goes to show how deeply ingrained the usual red/green assignment is!

Reminds me of the time I heard from someone much older than me that Democrats and Republicans switched from being red or blue almost every year until 2000 when the election results were so uncertain that people got used to seeing red=Republican and blue=Democrat for weeks and the color scheme just ended up becoming permanent. As a (younger) politics junkie I was shocked even though it makes total sense and I've alway…

Very true, "red" and "blue" had no political meaning in my childhood. Another source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-republicans-were...

Re: Why does the "chart increasing" emoji show in red?

#74

Post by eyelidlessness »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #53
culi wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Liberal in most of the rest of the world usually means something similar to "neoliberal" which is usually thought of as a moderate or conservative ideology. When you say liberal, do you mean it in the way it's used in the US (a stand-in for "leftist") or the way it's used in the rest of the world?

Red is almost uniformly a more-left/pro-labor political color outside the U.S.

More left than conservative, but not leftist in the blanket sense usually used in the US.

Re: Why does the "chart increasing" emoji show in red?

#75

Post by eyelidlessness »

jedberg wrote: post #67
dionidium wrote: post #62

This is a bit tangential, but I sometimes wish there were a word for the mistake of thinking a convention represents a fundamental property of the thing represented. Other examples that come to mind: 1. Maps that aren't oriented with north on top 2. U.S. electrical outlets that are "upside-down" I'm sure there are others, but those are the two that jump to mind.

Funny you mention the outlets. They're actually safer "upside down" because if they get loose and something falls on top, it'll just hit the ground pin instead of possibly creating a circuit across the hot and neutral.

Now I'm wondering why they're not "sideways" where neither of those seem likely.

Re: Why does the "chart increasing" emoji show in red?

#76

Post by int_19h »

petee wrote: post #58
ideaz wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In Japan, the country where the first emoji sets originated, red is traditionally used to represent increases in the value of a stock. I don't see it necessary to make a correlation to a stop-light's color coding. You could also argue why anything hot is colored red while cool is supposedly blue.

Well metal becomes red hot, and ice is often blueish in nature. But it is something we humans do, particularly with signaling devices (which a chart is a form of too, arguably) you will see color used in similar fashions to convey a similar meaning. Red is internationally a STOP color, a danger, warning color, and used as such most everywhere; except the Japanese stock market apparently. Which is fine, just curious t…

One of the reasons why red is used internationally for stop lights is because it has the least scattering in the air, which means that it can be seen from further away.

Re: Why does the "chart increasing" emoji show in red?

#78

Post by nopenopenopeno »

culi wrote: post #51
monkeybutton wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Liberal in most of the rest of the world usually means something similar to "neoliberal" which is usually thought of as a moderate or conservative ideology. When you say liberal, do you mean it in the way it's used in the US (a stand-in for "leftist") or the way it's used in the rest of the world?

In America, “conservative” and “liberal” both mean neoliberal.

Re: Why does the "chart increasing" emoji show in red?

#79

Post by nopenopenopeno »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #74
NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Red is almost uniformly a more-left/pro-labor political color outside the U.S.

More left than conservative, but not leftist in the blanket sense usually used in the US.

Red has been the symbolic color of every socialist movement since the French Revolution.

Re: Why does the "chart increasing" emoji show in red?

#80

Post by eyelidlessness »

nopenopenopeno wrote: post #79
eyelidlessness wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More left than conservative, but not leftist in the blanket sense usually used in the US.

Red has been the symbolic color of every socialist movement since the French Revolution.

You are correct and I intended to reply to a different comment! I was distracted by my pup while eating dinner.
Post reply on HN