Smile! ‘Selfie’ chosen as word of the year
The internet is full of celebrities posting “selfies” – and the rest of us duly followed in their footsteps. Now the 21st century term for a self-portrait photo is named the definitive word of 2013.
The selfie – a self-picture – has grown in popularity over the last year as millions of people, including even the Pope, posted their photos online.
The term was given its crowning “word of the year” title ahead of contenders “twerk” – the dance move that shot into the mainstream after Miley Cyrus’s performance at the VMA awards – and “binge-watch”, which describes marathon TV viewing, usually of the same programme via a TV boxset. (Another word that has grown in popularity in recent years).
Oxford Dictionaries said the earliest known usage is an Australian online forum from 2002, where someone posted a photo of themselves after a drunken accident accompanied by the words: “And sorry about the focus, it was a selfie.”
One of the most famous selfies of 2013 was the Pope posing with teenagers at the Vatican. Afer the picture went viral on social media, it was deemed the first ever “papal selfie”.
Another selfie to hit the headlines was taken by Samantha Cameron’s sister on the morning of her wedding day, revealing David Cameron napping on a four-poster bed in the background.
Read more: the rise of the selfie – why we’re all celebrities now
Up to speed with Oxford Dictionary word of the year: here’s today’s ‘selfie’! http://t.co/FUXtOHXVa3
— Jon Snow (@jonsnowC4) November 19, 2013
However the process of awarding the esteemed title of word of the year is a scientific process: editors at Oxford Dictionaries analyse how often words have been used, and they say there has been a staggering 17,000 per cent increase in use of the word since last year.
The editors use a research programme which collects around 150m English words currently in use from around the web each month.
Judy Pearsall, editorial director for Oxford Dictionaries, said: “We can see a phenomenal upward trend in the use of selfie in 2013, and this helped to cement its selection as word of the year.
“Social media sites helped to popularise the term, with the hashtag #selfie appearing on the photo-sharing website Flickr as early as 2004, but usage wasn’t widespread until around 2012, when selfie was being used commonly in mainstream media sources.”
