The rise of smartphones has brought about the Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year into the limelight. ‘Emoji’ has been picked by the famous dictionary as its word of the year for 2015.
Oxford Dictionary defines ‘emoji’ as "a small digital image or icon used to express an idea or emotion in electronic communication," the term emoji came from the Japanese ‘e' meaning "picture" and ‘moji' meaning "letter" or "character."
According to PCMag, The OED chose the "Face with Tears of Joy" emoji as "the 'word' that best reflected the ethos, mood, and preoccupations of 2015."
Although emojis have long been around, they were called as emoticons in 1990s. It was during these times when punctuations where used by people to create their ‘emoticons’ to express their feelings that could not be represented by any word.
Moreover, Oxford University Press has also teamed up with SwiftKey in exploring the many ways that the most popular emoji is used across the globe.
The study came up with the result that the emoji with a “face with tears of joy” has been the most used emoji accounting for 17 percent of all emojis used in the U.S., and 20 percent in the U.K. this 2015. It considerably risen from the 9 percent and 4 percent usage, respectively, last year.
Moreover, ‘emoji’ has already being widely used and most likely replaced ‘emoticon,’ according to OED. It also is used three times more in 2015 than its usual usage in the previous year.
"Emojis are no longer the preserve of texting teens. Instead, they have been embraced as a nuanced form of expression, and one which can cross language barriers,” an OED blog post said.
Other words listed in OED's Word of the Year shortlist comprises actual words and includes tech-savvy terms like "ad blocker," "Dark Web," and "sharing economy."
What is your favorite emoji? Is it the ‘face with tears of joy?'
