Here are some words that dominated popular culture in Australia, the US and UK during the last year. Interesting for English, sociology, psychology, popular culture….
Macquarie Dictionary’s 2014 Word of the Year
Announced 5 Feb 2015. The winner: Mansplain (verb) – a man explaining something to a woman, in a way that is patronising because it assumes that a woman will be ignorant of the subject matter (Man + [ex]plain with “s” inserted to create a pronunciation link with explain). Runners-up: lifehacking, binge watching and bamboo ceiling.
People’s Choice: share plate – a serving in a restaurant designed as multiple small portions so that several diners can share the same dish.
Category winners:
- Agriculture: crash grazing
- Arts: binge watching
- Business: drip pricing
- Colloquial: mansplain
- Communications: emoji
- Eating and drinking: share plate
- Environment: green electricity
- Fashion: loom band
- General Interest: decision fatigue
- Health: ambulance ramping
- Internet: typosquatting
- Politics: defund
- Social Interest: lifehacking – the application of strategies or shortcuts used to simplify or improve any aspect of one’s life
- Sport: urban exploration
- Technology: selfie stick
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-05/mansplain-macquarie-dictionary-2014-word-of-year/6073620
https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/resources/view/word/of/the/year/
Complete list: https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/media2/feature_documents/MacquarieWOTY_WordList_2014_2.pdf
http://theconversation.com/mansplaining-the-word-of-the-year-and-why-it-matters-37091
Australian National Dictionary Centre 2014 Word of the Year
Shirtfront – to challenge or confront a person. Other popular phrases: Team Australia; man-bun; Ned Kelly beard; coward punch.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-10/shirtfront-named-australias-word-of-the-year/5956328
Global Language Monitor Top Word 2014
Analyses the English language globally – internet, social media, print, e-news. Emoji and other emoticons (pictographs) are becoming ingrained into the world’s vocabulary. The heart emoji was the most used character worldwide in 2014 and also won top “word” for 2014 – the first time a pictograph has won. There are currently 722 characters, with 250 more due this year (approved by Unicode Consortium, official keepers of internet code). Other top words: hashtag; vape; blood moon; nano; bae; bash tag; white privilege. Some top phrases: Hands up, don’t shoot; cosmic inflation; Big Data. Top names: ebola; Pope Francis; WW1; Medecins Sans Frontiers.
http://www.languagemonitor.com/category/words-of-the-year-woty/
Oxford Dictionaries 2014 Word of the Year
Vape – to smoke an e-cigarettes via vaporised nicotine. Runners-up: normcore (unisex fashion with unpretentious clothing); contactless (card-hovering payments); slacktivism; bae (term of endearment for a romantic partner).
Chambers Dictionary: overshare; Collins Dictionary – photobomb.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/nov/25/vape-this-years-selfie-2014-word-of-the-year
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/23/overshare-word-of-the-year-2014-chambers-dictionary
Merriam-Webster (US) 2014 Word of the Year
The most lookups online: 1.culture 2. nostalgia 3. insidious 4. legacy 5. feminism 6. Je ne sais quoi 7. innovation 8. surreptitious 9. autonomy 10. morbidity
http://www.merriam-webster.com/top-ten-lists/2014-word-of-the-year/culture.html
American Dialect Society 2014 Word of the Year
#blacklivesmatter – protest over black men killed at the hands of police (actually a hashtag sentence).
http://time.com/3662593/2014-word-of-year-blacklivesmatter/
Words of the Year from around the globe