"GIF celebrated³ a lexical（词汇的） milestone⁴ in 2012, gaining traction⁵ as a verb, not just a noun," said Katherine Martin, head of the US dictionaries program at Oxford.

 

"The GIF has evolved from a medium for pop-cultural memes into a tool with serious applications including research and journalism⁶, and its lexical identity is transforming to keep pace."

 

GIF is, in fact, an abbreviation of three separate words: Graphics⁷ Interchange Format⁸. It was first released by CompuServe in 1987 but has experienced a dramatic cultural resurgence⁹ in recent years, most commonly used to make humorous commentary on topics ranging from sports to the 2012 presidential election.

 

The runner-up for the word of the year was also an abbreviation, "YOLO," which stands for "You only live once."

 

"Superstorm" was another runner-up for word of the year, after the major storm that affected¹⁰ the Eastern US during the first week of November.

 

The British Oxford Dictionaries went a different route, choosing "omnishambles," as their word of the year, which is defined as "a situation that has been comprehensively mismanaged, characterized by a string of blunders and miscalculations."

 

Needless to say, having all three words shows how neologisms are having a growing influence in the cultural landscape.

 

Still, some older words have found new linguistic¹¹ relevance¹². "Pleb," taken from the Roman word "plebs," has found a modern context in its derogatory usage to describe "a member of the ordinary people or working classes."

 

Interestingly, the word-of the-year distinction does not guarantee that the chosen words will actually be included in future editions of the Oxford English Dictionary.

 

Here's the other shortlisted words according to OUP:

 

1. Eurogeddon

 

2. Super PAC

 

3. Superstorm

 

4. Nomophobia

 

5. Higgs boson

 

6. YOLO: you only live once

 

7. MOOC: massive open online course

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