According to Oxford Dictionaries, the word’s most popular word of 2013 is the selfie. Yes, selfie. That glorious term that has become synonymous with bathroom shots and knowing your angle. The selfie? Yes, the proud men and women of the Oxford University Press selected it from 8 words pooled from their O.D.N.M.C.R. Program (Oxford Dictionaries New Monitor Corpus Research). Other words in contention: twerk, bitcoin, schmeat.
How did selfie win out? Well, after O.D.N.M.C.R.P. selected these 8 words — from around 150 million possible candidates in current online use — they analyzed each word’s merit. They figured this should be a cultural as well as linguistic fight. So they considered things like longstanding cultural influence, popularity, geography, and communicative relevance. Selfie won out because it was the word they deemed to fit the ethos, the mood, the preoccupations of our year. Interesting.
Enjoy your face!
Via Petapixel. Image Credit: News.au.com
