Oxford Dictionaries' Word of the Year 2015 isn't even a word — it's an emoji
The "face with tears of joy" emoji has been named the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year, The University of Pennsylvania's Language Log blog reports.
Here's a bit of the reasoning, from the press release:
This year Oxford University Press partnered with leading mobile technology business SwiftKey to explore frequency and usage statistics for some of the most popular emoji across the world. "Face with Tears of Joy" came out a clear winner. According to SwiftKey's research, "Face with Tears of Joy" was the most heavily used emoji globally in 2015. Their research shows that the character comprised 20 percent of all emoji used in the U.K. in 2015, and 17 percent of all emoji used in the U.S. This compared to 4 percent and 9 percent respectively in 2014. In the U.S. the next most popular emoji was "Face Throwing a Kiss," comprising 9 percent of all usage. [Oxford Dictionaries]
For what it's worth, the runners-up were actual "words" (whatever that even means anymore). The tears-of-joy emoji beat out ad blocker, Brexit, dark web, lumbersexual, on fleek, refugee, sharing economy, and they, The Herald Sun reports.
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RIP language!
