Oxford Dictionaries' word of the year is - hold your breath - 'selfie.'
Selfie, which means "a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website," has been recognized as the word of the year. Per Oxford, "Language research conducted by Oxford Dictionaries editors reveals that the frequency of the word selfie in the English language has increased by 17,000% since this time last year." And, we're not surprised because lately many apps, which allow you to take a photo of self and instantly post it on your social networks, have launched.
The other shortlisted words were 'twerk,' which means a raunchy dance move performed and made popular by Miley Cyrus. The other one was 'binge,' which means watching lots of TV.
The word 'selfie' is believed to be coined from an Australian chat room in September 2002. According to the dictionaries' publishers, it was then used to describe an undignified scene.
It is believed that the word 'selfie' was first used in a paragraph which described a post-drunk accident. The post was "Um, drunk at a mates 21st, I tripped ofer 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."
There aren't any hard and fast rule for the spelling of the word 'selfie'. You can use "ie" or "y", just like "selfy".
The word also has given rise to creation of other rhyming words, such as "helfie," which means hairstyle selfie; "belfie," which means bum selfie; "welfie," which means workout selfie; and then there's the "drelfie," which is the drunken selfie.
"Selfie" as a hashtag was first used in the Flickr's photo description in 2004 but drastically got more popularity in 2012.
