Today's world has really gone upside down. Nowadays, death by selfie is now more dangerous than shark attacks. And, just now, the word of the year is not even a word! It is an emoji, E! Online reported.
Yes, Oxford Dictionaries is clearly updated when it comes to the world's shifting language. But what emoji could possibly take the place of a word? Could it be the smiling poop emoji? Perhaps the taco? Nope. What takes the cake this year is nothing less than “Face With Tears of Joy” emoji!
Not sure what that is? Click here. But for a vast majority of you, this emoji has all but taken the place of “haha” and “lol” and all the iterations in between. It would seem that typing ROFL (remember that one?) is simply too much for today's language.
What does Oxford have to say about their choice of “Word” of the year 2015? "Although emoji have been a staple of texting teens for some time, emoji culture exploded into the global mainstream over the past year," they explained in a press release. "Emoji have come to embody a core aspect of living in a digital world that is visually driven, emotionally expressive, and obsessively immediate."
Simply said, this emoji is just so popular that it deserves this kind of recognition. "This year Oxford University Press have partnered with leading mobile technology business SwiftKey to explore frequency and usage statistics for some of the most popular emoji across the world, and 'Face with Tears of Joy' was chosen because it was the most used emoji globally in 2015," Oxford wrote on their blog.
They added, "SwiftKey identified that [Face with Tears of Joy] made up 20% of all the emojis used in the UK in 2015, and 17% of those in the US."
There are actual words that made it into the shortlist if you are still wondering where the words are in “Word of the Year.” See below:
Ad Blocker – A piece of software designed to prevent advertisements from appearing on a web page.
Dark Web, noun: The part of the World Wide Web that is only accessible by means of special software, allowing users and website operators to remain anonymous or untraceable.
Lumbersexual, noun: A young urban man who cultivates an appearance and style of dress (typified by a beard and check shirt) suggestive of a rugged outdoor lifestyle.
Refugee, noun: A person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster.
