The prestigious guardians of the English language, the Oxford English Dictionary, have proclaimed “selfie” as Word of the Year 2013. The award is proclaimed every year by the long-standing prominent organization by recognizing a word or expression that during that year has attracted a lot of attention and usage.
A “selfie” is described as a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website.
Sound familiar? Many of us in this day and age have taken a selfie, and if you didn’t know there was a name for the action, now you can join countless of others who included this term in their vocabulary. In fact the organization has claimed that the usage of selfie has increased by 17,000% in this past year. The word can be traced back to 2002 when it was first used in an Australian online forum and gained a lot of momentum since. It beat out other popular words from this year, such as “twerk” and “bitcoin.”
There are even more specific words that evolved out of selfie. “Helfie” is a self-photograph of one’s hair. “Belfie” is a selfie of one’s backside. Lastly “welfie” is one taken while working out.
The word of the year has already been added to the online version of the dictionary in August 2013 and is being considered for inclusion in next year’s official hard copies.
We at Trusted Translations make sure to keep abreast of the evolving and growing vocabulary of various languages. Send us your files for a free quote today. Just make sure you don’t accidentally send us one of your selfies!
