Still, it’s a bit of a head-scratcher as to why Oxford Dictionaries didn’t just give the award to the word “emoji” instead. “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”, said Casper Grathwohl, President of “Oxford Dictionaries”.
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About its decision to select an emoji as the Word of the Year for 2015, Oxford Dictionaries said that the “Face With Tears of Joy” emoji has been chosen to represent “the “word” that best reflected the ethos, mood, and preoccupations of 2015″. So, Oxford University Press partnered with leading mobile technology business SwiftKey to explore the frequency and usage statistics for a few of the most popular emojis across the globe. Last year, the chosen word was Vape and selfie for the year before.
Oxford Dictionaries’ choice for 2015 Word of the Year shows that because of tech-driven means of communication, words have fallen on tough times: They’re not even guaranteed to win an accolade seemingly reserved for them. It is not a word; it’s an emoji.
According to PBS Newshour, the title recognizes the new found status and influence of emoji in the daily digital communications.
Emoji, which first gained popularity among young people, are now spreading among other generations and influential figures. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton also opted for an emoji to communicate during her campaign.
“Since emoji characters began displaying on Twitter in April 2014, they have become a practical and fun way to convey extra meaning and emotion in the space of 140 characters”, Twitter’s senior data specialist Joe Cruse wrote in a blog post.
They (singular), pronoun: Used to refer to a person of unspecified sex.
In the United Kingdom, the happy crying face made up 20% of all emojis sent in 2015, while it also made up 17% of emojis used in the US.
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“Emojis are no longer the preserve of texting teens”.
