The word of the year chosen by the Oxford Dictionaries is a emoji – Jornal de Negócios – Portugal

The Oxford Dictionaries chosen as word of the year not a word but one emoji, ie, a representative picture of an action or state of mind, commonly used in electronic communications. The choice is not being well received on social networks.

For the first time, the word of the year chosen by the Oxford Dictionaries is an image, or rather, one emoji, officially called the” face with tears of joy, “and it is an image of a yellow puppet laughing with joy, typically used in communications over the internet.

“There were other strong competitors in many fields,” can be read on the official blog of Oxford Dictionaries which was announced choice for Word of the Year, “but [the emoji] was chosen as the ‘word that best reflects the spirit, mood and concerns 2015.”

According to a published note, emojis or emoji – and it is assumed that both forms are correct when you want to talk about emoji plural -. there “since the late 1990s, but in 2015 its use and the use of the word emoji increased a lot”

“This year Oxford University Press has teamed up with leading mobile technology SwiftKey to explore the frequency and statistical use of some of the most popular emoji in the world and was chosen the ‘face with tears of joy’ because it was the emoji more used globally in 2015, “the statement said.

With regard to the word emoji, despite having been discovered in English since 1997,” its use has more than tripled in 2015 compared to the previous year ” .

The Oxford Dictionaries define emoji as “a small digital picture or icon used to express an idea or emotion in electronic communications”, and the term comes from the Japanese referring to the ‘and’ the image and ‘moji’ the letter, character.

“The resemblance to the English word emoticon has helped it to become memorable and boosted its use,” the statement said, though stressing an emoticon is “a composite facial expression By keyboard characters such as;) instead of a stylized image. “

You can read further in this document that” emojis are no longer just reserved for messages exchanged among adolescents “and have been to be embraced as a “nuance” in the form of expressing ideas and used by various personalities and brands. . These images are also able to “overcome language barriers”

The remaining candidates for word of the year were:

Ad Blocker, a program designed to block advertising;

Brexit, a term used for an output potential of the United Kingdom of the European Union;

Dark Web, part of the only accessible internet through the use of specific programs and allowing Internet users maintain anonymity and avoid detection;

On fleek, which means extremely good, attractive or stylish;

Lumbersexual, which refers to the townspeople young people who cultivate an image type – typified by the use beard and checked shirts – that suggest a lifestyle outdoors;

Refugee, someone forced to leave their country to escape war, persecution or natural disasters;

shared Economics, an economic system where the property or assets are shared by several individuals for free or for a fee, typically over the internet.

They, expression in English that refers to Them / They and serves to refer to people without specifying sex.

Choosing a emoji for word of the year is not being well received, with people reacting on social networks. “The general reaction has been disappointment, to say the least,” can be read today in an article in The Telegraph.