Oxford Dictionaries' word of the year for 2013 definitely
captures a snapshot of our social-media-obsessed moment. It is SELFIE.
selfie noun, informal (also selfy; plural selfies):
a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a
smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website.
While it is safe to say that selfie’s star has risen over
the last 12 months, it is actually much older than that. Evidence on the Oxford
English Corpus shows the word selfie in use by 2003, but further research shows
the earliest usage (so far anyway) as far back as 2002. Its use was, fittingly
enough, in an online source – an Australian internet forum.
“Um, drunk at a
mates 21st, I tripped ofer [sic] and landed lip first (with front teeth coming
a very close second) on a set of steps. I had a hole about 1cm long right
through my bottom lip. And sorry about the focus, it was a selfie.” (2002 ABC
Online (forum posting) 13 Sept).
The term’s early origins seem to lie in social media and photo
sharing sites like Flickr and MySpace. But usage of it didn’t become widespread
until the second decade of this century and it has only entered really common
use in the past year or so. Self-portraits are nothing new – people have been
producing them for centuries, with the medium and publication format changing.
Oil on canvas gave way to celluloid, which in turn gave way to photographic
film and digital media. As the process became snappier (pun intended) so has the
name. And now as smartphones have become de rigueur for most, rather than just
for techies, the technology has ensured that selfies are both easier to produce
and to share, not least by the inclusion of a button which means you don’t need
a nearby mirror. It seems likely that this will have contributed at least in
part to its increased usage. By 2012, selfie was commonly being used in
mainstream media sources and this has been rising ever since.
unit= freq./billion words
Early evidence for the term show a variant spelling with
a –y ending, but the –ie form is vastly more common today and has become the
accepted spelling of the word. It could be argued that the use of the -ie
suffix helps to turn an essentially narcissistic enterprise into something
rather more endearing. It also provides a tie-in with the word’s seemingly
Australian origins, as Australian English has something of a penchant for -ie
words – barbie for barbecue, firie for firefighter, tinnie for a can of beer,
to name just three.
But you would be surprised that even on such arena, there
is a strong competition among respectable agencies. As opposed to Oxford
decision, Merriam-Webster has declared "science" its 2013 word of the
year.
Oxford's buzzworthy choice of "selfie" last
month was a result of the word's growing usage and digital fame. But its U.S.
counterpart picked "science" primarily based on numbers on its
website. It looked at the most searched-for words on its online dictionary,
Merriam-Webster.com, and also those that showed the biggest increase in the
number of look-ups.
The word with the largest spike? Science. A 176% increase
in look-ups, to be exact. "A wide
variety of discussions centered on science this year, from climate change to
educational policy," the dictionary editors said in a statement. "We saw heated debates about 'phony'
science, or whether science held all the answers. It's a topic that has great
significance for us."
Merriam-Webster has a history of not getting too carried
away by Internet memes.
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