OVER the last decade, the lowly aubergine has been given a new lease of life.

Its culinary merits have been long applauded, but the notorious digital form of the purple veg – often used as a male member substitute in text messages – has imbued it with a new shorthand innuendo. Red-faced, smiley emoji.

The rise of the emoji — the array of small images or icons found on smartphones — has certainly given users singular ways to speak a thousand words.

Those who are flummoxed can call upon a cactus, a snake, a cheeky moon or a cat with hearts for eyes to successfully get their message across.

But recently a fight has broken out over whether we have taken some of these little images too far.

One of the most popular emojis has been the "pile of poo" which was upgraded with a grinning face.

The following logic would mean the addition for a pile of poo with a face that is less than satisfied.

However the idea of a "frowning pile of poo" went down the pan in the latest upgrade proposals from the group who create the symbols.

The Unicode Consortium, the independent standards body which pushes out the image-based language, said it was "embarrassing" to the group.

Writing in a feedback report on latest amendments one of the main typographers, Michael Everson, said: "The idea that our committees would sanction further cute graphic characters based on this should embarrass absolutely everyone who votes yes on such an excrescence.

"Will we have a CRYING PILE OF POO next? PILE OF POO WITH TONGUE STICKING OUT? PILE OF POO WITH QUESTION MARKS FOR EYES?

"PILE OF POO WITH KARAOKE MIC? Will we have to encode a neutral FACELESS PILE OF POO?".

He went on to say that the "only proper semantic" for the message would be "a coil of dog dirt with stink lines and flies".

It has been recognised however that emojis are important in bolstering better representation and inclusivity.

They were updated in 2015 to better represent religious and ethnic minorities. And now the shortlist of 82 emojis for 2018 includes faces with ginger hair, curly hair as well as bald and grey-haired people.

A flag for Scotland, missing before, is among the latest to appear on Apple phones. Also in the pipeline are a flags for England, Wales, and gender-neutral faces and an orange heart also missing from the present, coloured array.

The final list is set to be released early next year and will be rolled out in the months which follow.

Grant Gibson, deputy MD at Glasgow-based creative agency Bright Signals, said that although emoji were an important method of communication, there needed to be some kind of filtering of the growing list.

"It’s a huge challenge to convey sentiment and emotion in social media conversations," he said. "Emoji are an invaluable tool to ensure that spoken sentiments, like sarcasm and laughter, aren’t misconstrued in a pithy text message.

"But I’d argue we’ve gone too far when we have a specific emoji for a cat with a wry smile."

He said that a sad poo emoji would just be a step too far.

"Before long we’d want regional and cultural variations, with the inevitable debate on the unique attributes that define a Scottish poo.

"This can’t continue forever – how would anyone possibly find the right emoji when they have 10,000 to scroll through? Perhaps we need a ranking system, with only the 100 most used emojis surviving an annual cull.

"Maybe then we could get rid of ‘man in suit levitating’ and replace him with something more useful, like a swarm of midges."

Taps Aff emoji, anyone?