“Face with tears of joy” emoji was the most used emoji worldwide in 2015. (Photo : Twitter)
The Oxford Dictionaries has chosen its Word of the Year for 2015, and it is not a word but an emoji portraying a “face with tears of joy.”
It is first time in history that the authority on English language included a pictograph, or emoji, to its list of Word of the Year. The dictionary publisher partnered with mobile keyboard software maker SwiftKey to analyze usage statistics for all emoji. The partnership worked to explore the frequency and usage statistics of the popular emojis worldwide.
They found that “face with tears of joy” emoji was the most used emoji worldwide, making up 20 percent of all the emojis used in the United Kingdom in 2015, and 17 percent of those in the United States. With the advent of various messenger apps such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, emoji has become an important tool for expressing emotion as clearly as possible, PC World reported.
Every year, Oxford’s selection team, comprised of lexicographers and consultants to the dictionary team, and editorial, marketing, and publicity staff, talks about several options and selects a word, expression or in this case, emoji. They lay down their judgment to reflect the ethos, mood, or preoccupations of that particular year.
“Face with tears of joy” emoji continues a recent trend from Oxford Dictionaries in selecting “Words of the Year” that are associated with web culture, according to Wall Street Journal. In 2012, the U.S. Word of the Year was “GIF,” the following year was “selfie.,” and the word of the year for 2014 was vape.
Oxford Dictionaries has also released a short list of runners-up for word of the year, including "sharing economy," "on fleek" and, on a more serious note, "refugee."
