Oxford Dictionaries Selects an Emoji as Word of the Year | Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight | Scoop.it

The Oxford Dictionaries has chosen its Word of the Year for 2015: An emoji depicting the “face with tears of joy.”

Oxford Dictionaries cited an explosion in “emoji culture” over the last year as one of the reasons “face with tears of joy” was selected.

“You can see how traditional alphabet scripts have been struggling to meet the rapid-fire, visually focused demands of 21st century communication,” said Casper Grathwohl, President of Oxford Dictionaries in a statement. “It’s not surprising that a pictographic script like emoji has stepped in to fill those gaps—it’s flexible, immediate, and infuses tone beautifully. As a result emoji are becoming an increasingly rich form of communication, one that transcends linguistic borders.”

Other words and expressions that made the 2015 Word of the Year shortlist: Ad blocker, Dark Web, lumbersexual, on fleek, refugee, Brexit, and sharing economy. A curious entry into the shortlist was also “they.”...