Name: Peach emoji.

Age: Up to 6,000 years old.

They had emojis 6,000 years ago? Sort of. As you know, the ancient Sumerians used a system of writing called cuneiform, which began as a series of pictograms.

And what has that got to do with 2019? Well, cuneiform sometimes used symbols that stood for multiple words or concepts. And if what they were trying to say was difficult or abstract, they might borrow existing symbols and give them new meanings.

Er ... gotcha. Maybe. Are we tweeting on stone tablets now? Not quite, no – but we are using emojis in ways that literally aren’t literal.

For example? Well, a fire emoji could mean a fire, of course, but also enthusiasm, success, ferocity ...

I’m guessing the peach emoji doesn’t always refer to the fruit of the prunus persica tree? Correct.

What does it mean? Well, it has also come to refer to a part of the human anatomy.

Which part? Look at it! It’s round and smooth and peachy with a vertical crack …

A knee? No! Think of something that rhymes with farce in the UK, or lass in the US.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I just wanted you to say arse in print. But that’s obvious – and a bum is hardly a difficult or abstract concept, is it? Ah, but it’s even more newsworthy than that, because the peach now means something else, too.

Go on. So, last week, the American singer and rapper Lizzo tweeted IM-*peach emoji*-MENT to her 1.1 million followers. At time of writing, it has been liked more than 120,000 times.

Im-ass-ment? Im-butt-ment? No, partly because neither of those exist as things. Look at it, think about concepts, and cuneiform, and where Lizzo is ...

Got it! ImPEACHment! Impeach Trump! Indeed. She later spelled out the meaning on an Instagram post from a concert. “Im ... peach,” she said bending over and slapping her left butt cheek, “... ment.”

Embracing multiple meanings. Exactly. Plus it works on loads of levels – she could easily have used the emoji to say he needed to get his butt out of the White House.

Wow – a humble fruit, having already been sexualised, has now been politicised, too. Thanks to an ancient people of Mesopotamia, via a 21st-century musician from Michigan.

Do say: “Looks peachy keen.”

Don’t say: “What does the eggplant emoji stand for these days?”