Photo: Oxford Dictionaries
by Inga Ting
Will 2015 be remembered as the year words finally failed us?
Oxford Dictionaries seems to think so. For the first time, the Word of the Year is not even a word. It's a pictograph: an emoji officially called 'Face with Tears of Joy'.
"There were other strong contenders from a range of fields, outlined below, but [😂] was chosen as the 'word' that best reflected the ethos, mood, and preoccupations of 2015," according to the Oxford Dictionary blog.
How did Face with Tears of Joy emerge victorious, defeating such formidable contenders as they, lumber sexual and refugee in the pitched battle to embody the year that was?
It was the world's most used emoji in 2015, according to figures compiled by Oxford University Press and mobile technology firm Swift-Key.
