Since the Oxford Dictionary, a well respected and trusted compendium of words selected an emoji (Tears of Joy) as the word of the year, there has been a flame war of comments about the choice. When I first heard of the decision I had very little reaction but many questions. But, I failed to have the visceral response that other people seemed to have. My favorite comment that I have read so far is “that this choice is the final nail in the coffin of civilization”! Wow! If this is the final nail then we are in serious trouble.
My first legitimate question is to ask how an emoji, a representational pictograph, can be defined as a word? And second, how do we find it in a book of alphabetized words? Do we look up emoji, tears, joy, ideograph, face, or simply social media contagion? Here is what the Oxford Dictionary, a dictionary that has been around since the late 1800’s said:
“Emojis (the plural can be either emoji or emojis) have been around since the late 1990s, but 2015 saw their use, and use of the word emoji, increase hugely. This year Oxford University Press have partnered with leading mobile technology business SwifttKey to explore frequency and usage statistics for some of the most popular emoji across the world, and was chosen because it was the most used emoji globally in 2015. SwiftKey identified that made up 20% of all the emojis used in the UK in 2015 and 17% of those in the US: a sharp rise from 4% and 9% respectively in 2014. The word emoji has seen a similar surge: although it has been found in English since 1997, usage more than tripled in 2015 over the previous year according to data from the Oxford Dictionaries Corpus”.
So, because this is the most popular emoji, by extension, it is the most important word and worthy of the “Word of the year award”! Based on that logic, I guess that “selfie” is the new photography standard. I am not sure if this dictionary already has selfie and I really don’t care. I think that I will just file this in the same box with the other concepts that I don’t understand…
My first legitimate question is to ask how an emoji, a representational pictograph, can be defined as a word? And second, how do we find it in a book of alphabetized words? Do we look up emoji, tears, joy, ideograph, face, or simply social media contagion? Here is what the Oxford Dictionary, a dictionary that has been around since the late 1800’s said:
“Emojis (the plural can be either emoji or emojis) have been around since the late 1990s, but 2015 saw their use, and use of the word emoji, increase hugely. This year Oxford University Press have partnered with leading mobile technology business SwifttKey to explore frequency and usage statistics for some of the most popular emoji across the world, and was chosen because it was the most used emoji globally in 2015. SwiftKey identified that made up 20% of all the emojis used in the UK in 2015 and 17% of those in the US: a sharp rise from 4% and 9% respectively in 2014. The word emoji has seen a similar surge: although it has been found in English since 1997, usage more than tripled in 2015 over the previous year according to data from the Oxford Dictionaries Corpus”.
So, because this is the most popular emoji, by extension, it is the most important word and worthy of the “Word of the year award”! Based on that logic, I guess that “selfie” is the new photography standard. I am not sure if this dictionary already has selfie and I really don’t care. I think that I will just file this in the same box with the other concepts that I don’t understand…
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