18 Nov 2015

AGGGGGHHHH! THE EMOJI STRIKES AGAIN.

A staple of teenagers sending text messages, tennis ace tweeted Andy Murray tweeted his wedding itinerary using them and its rumoured that US presidential candidate Hilary Clinton uses them whilst communicating with young voters, the emoji has supposedly 'come to embody a core aspect of living in a digital world'.

So it's hardly surprising that this...



is, drum roll please .... 

The Word Of The Year.

The Word Of The Year? 

Yes, I joke you not, Crying With Laughter is the Oxford Dictionary Word Of The Year.

Not the word emoji itself you understand (I could have possibly understood this) BUT, the most popular of all the emojis according to one on-line app, the 'Crying with Laughter' emoji.

Surely no worse than previous nominations such as ...

  • Bitcoin (2013): A type of digital currency
  • Yolo (2012): Short for You Only Live Once, it expresses the sentiment that one should make the most of that moment in time and not worry about the future
  • Woot-Woot (2012): The internet's cry of triumph
  • Tweetup (2009): A meeting organised by means of posts on Twitter.

Apparently officially known as the 'Face with Tears of Joy' emoji, this year it beat fellow contenders such as ...
  • Fleek: Which as far as I understand from Google Search has its origins in something to do with .. eyebrows?
  • Lumbersexual: A metro-sexual who has the need to hold on to some outdoor based ruggedness thus opting to keep a finely trimmed beard according to the Urban Dictionary.
  • Ad blocker: Hmm, a search has failed to show up this word BUT according to the font of all knowledge that is Wikipedia Ad blocking is removing or altering advertising content in a webpage which thus I'm presuming an Ad blocker is someone capable of doing this.
  • Dark Web: the part of the World Wide Web only reachable by means of special software which allows users to remain anonymous.
Fear not though, its not quite as bad as it first sounds. There are no plans to include symbols in the dictionary OR, muhahahaha, are there?

9 comments:

Gina said...

*-* That's not even funny ma'am...scaring people like that first thing in the morning. (Just kidding....but seriously! What in the world?!)

Kelly said...

I'll admit...I love emojis and use them often. However, the one pictured rarely makes the cut for me. (I have others I prefer far more...and my fingers are just itching to use them now!)

A bit ironic that your search for "Ad blocker" was perhaps blocked.

brandileigh2003 said...

Wow. that is kind of... indicative of the generation I guess. Some of the nominations I haven't heard of

Shooting Stars Mag said...

Woow...bit ridiculous, I think It's not a word! GAh!

Literary Feline said...

Haha! That's crazy. At first I didn't believe it, but my husband had even heard about it.

I've noticed the "dark web" has won mention on a lot of TV shows of late. I hadn't heard of it before that.

Yvonne @ Fiction Books Reviews said...

Hi Tracy,

The Dark Web has hit the news quite a few times recently, in relation to hacking scandals and some of the recent sex scandals which have hit our screens. It makes me laugh when the news channels come out with all these new terms and phrases and then go on to tell their millions of viewers exactly what they mean and how they are being mis-used, in great detail. ... Who needs to spend any time learning how to damage the web anonymously, when the newsman will tell you all for free!!

I quite often use a smiley face in my posts, but I have never really bothered finding out about any of the many other Emoji expressions. Unfortunately, it has become something like the exclamation mark, a very over-used punctuation tool, of which I am as guilty as the next person!!! :)

Alas, gone are the days when you could open a dictionary and find a sensible word to use in a written statement or verbal communication. I for one, am glad I am classed as too old to be worried too much about the degradation of our language, although I do have very strong views on the subject!

Sorry, I didn't realise I had written so much - just take it that is a sign of how thought provoking and interesting your original post was ;)

Yvonne

Brian Joseph said...

EMOJIs are all the rage these days. It seems that it is not just young people using them. I think that many adults do too. That is an interesting story about Hilary Clinton.

I actually like the term "Tweetup" the best.

Karen said...

"On Fleek" drives me nuts...I'm not sure if it's a US thing but I hear it all the time.

That emoji as word of the year. Grrr

I have heard lumbersexual but I always thought of it as a jokey phrase in the romance community - not an actual thing.

Karen @For What It's Worth

Stephanie@Fairday's Blog said...

I do use emojis- but I don't think I have actually used the most popular one before. I am not sure I realized exactly what it meant. Tweetup is new to me- as is, fleek, lumbersexual, and adblocker (though I just read the term today- I wasn't exactly sure what it meant). Thanks for sharing!