Oxford picks words of 2012

Manila Standard Today, Lifestyle | November 20, 2012

Not all new words are welcomed into the dictionary. For a word to be immortalized as a legitimate part of the vocabulary, it has to prove its verbal currency and longevity. While being named the word of the year doesn’t guarantee a spot within the hallowed pages, the distinction implies that it’s about halfway there because it was “chosen to reflect the ethos of the year and its lasting potential as a word of cultural significance.”

Every year, the lexicographers of the Oxford University Press screen numerous new English words and existing ones with new meanings to decide which will be crowned the words of the year—one each for the UK and the US. Here are the 2012 results:

Among the British nominees were “mummy porn” (typically harmless literature with elaborate eroticism that would make the faces of suburban housewives turn red), “second screening” (the act of watching TV and being online simultaneously, usually to live-tweet what you’re watching) and “Eurogeddon” (pertaining to the worst case scenario of the European financial crisis). But the word that resonated the most in the UK was “omnishambles.”

A noun defined as “a situation that has been comprehensively mismanaged, and is characterized by a string of blunders and miscalculations,” the word was coined by the writers of “The Thick of It,” a satirical TV show in Britain. It is noted for successfully crossing over from the realm of fiction to reality and its use in other contexts. It’s a word that actually sounds legit, unlike another contender, “YOLO” (acronym for “you only live once”), which is a hit among youngsters but doesn’t quite endear to anyone beyond 25.

Meanwhile, the American winner is “GIF” (acronym for “Graphics Interchange Format”), a digital image file format that allows the “giffer” to string a series of still frames, usually from video screen caps, for a looping effect. The 25-year-old format recently reached trendy status for being extensively used in generating animated Internet memes. For the word of the year, Oxford lexicographers chose the verb form of the acronym (as in “to gif” and “giffing”).

Other words in the US shortlist were “Higgs boson,” “nomophobia” (the fear of being without one’s mobile phone) and “superstorm” (a storm that’s uncharacteristically huge and potentially devastating, like Sandy), as well as “YOLO” and “Eurogeddon.”

Currently, “omnishambles” is under consideration for inclusion in Oxford dictionaries while “GIF” is recognized but still defined solely as a noun. Previous words of the year include “sudoku” (2005), “carbon footprint” (2007) and “credit crunch” (2008) for the UK; “podcast” (2005), “carbon-neutral” (2006) and “unfriend” (2009) for the US. Last year, “squeezed middle” won in both countries.