Oxford Dictionaries' USA Word of the Year Is...

The Oxford Dictionaries (@OUPAcademic) USA Word of the Year for 2012 is GIF (pronounced with either a soft or hard “G”). GIF the noun has been around for years. GIF the verb (“He GIFed the highlights of the debate”) is derived from GIF the file extension.

“The GIF, a compressed file format for images that can be used to create simple, looping animations, turned 25 this year,” notes Oxford University Press’ Katherine Martin, “but like so many other relics of the 80s, it has never been trendier.” (Listen to Studio 360’s (@Studio360show) “'Tis the Season for GIF-ing.”

Word of the Year runners-up include Eurogeddon, Higgs boson, MOOC (massive open online course), nomophobia (anxiety caused by being without one’s mobile phone), super PAC, superstorm, and YOLO (you only live once). Oxford Dictionaries also announced its British “Word of the Year”: omnishambles. Officially defined as a situation “characterized by a string of blunders and miscalculations.”

Read the USA Word of the Year announcement in full.

Read the UK Word of the Year announcement in full.

In its 23rd annual words of the year vote, the American Dialect Society (@americandialect) selected "hashtag" as the 2012 word of the year. Hashtag refers to the practice used on Twitter for marking topics or making commentary by means of a hash or number symbol (#) followed by a word or phrase (#WOTY12).

If you’re a word lover, also see our previous blogposts,

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