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The Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2015 Is an Emoji (oxforddictionaries.com)

Posted by Soulskill on from the it's-too-late-to-complain-but-go-ahead dept.

AmiMoJo writes: For the first time ever, the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year is a pictograph (that Slashdot is unable to reproduce), officially called the 'Face with Tears of Joy' emoji (U+1F602). Oxford University Press have partnered with SwiftKey to explore frequency and usage statistics for some of the most popular emoji across the world. Emoji is a Japanese word (pronounced "eh-mo-jee"), originating from Japanese mobile service providers who all had their own unique set before they were standardized in Unicode. Other notable words this year include "ad blocker," "Brexit" (British exit from the EU), lumbersexual and "they (singular)" (pronoun to refer to a person of unspecified sex).

4 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. Oxford gets it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    The modern app appers at Oxford know that only apps can app apps, which is why they're apping Emoji apps so we can app other apps using Emojis!

    Apps!

  2. Re:Pathetic. by jbmartin6 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I would be glad to, but they generally don't use English which is what the E in OED stands for

    --
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  3. Re:It's A Dark Day For Oxford by MitchDev · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Dark day for intelligence when these stupid emojis are given "word" status...

    Now maybe thousand-word status since a picture is supposedly worth a thousand words...

  4. He's a lumberjack and he's OK by rossdee · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Lumbersexual is a new one to me. Apparently it's someone who grooms and dresses to appear like a person who spends a lot of time outdoors (like a lumberjack I guess)."

    Put on womens clothing and hang around in bars?