Interesting Facts

The word of the year for 2015, as chosen by the Oxford English dictionary, is a pictograph: (Officially called the ‘Face with Tears of Joy’ emoji, (I call it laugh till you cry) was chosen as the ‘word’ that best reflected the ethos, mood, and preoccupations of 2015. I wonder what Shakespeare would say.  Answers on the back of a postcard using 10 emojis or less.)

The American Dialect Society’s 'Word of the Year 2010' is - drumroll – 'app'. (App is abbreviated tech slang for a computer or smart phone application. The runner up was ‘nom’ - a chat, tweet, and text-friendly syllable that stands for ‘yummy food’. It comes from the sound that Sesame Street character Cookie Monster makes as he devours his favourite food. I'm eating a bit of chocolate with my coffee - nom nom.) Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk

The Global Language Monitor has made "Twitter" the top word of 2009. (Not "twitter" the noise a small bird makes, but the 140 character chattering you do online. "Twitter" was followed by Obama, H1N1, stimulus and believe it or not, vampire.)

Oxford University Press made hypermiling the word of the year for 2008. (Hypermiling(aka EcoDriving) was used for the first time in 2004 by Wayne Gerdes. It means to attempt to maximize gas mileage by making fuel-conserving adjustments to a car and your driving techniques. Rather than aiming for good mileage or even great mileage, hypermilers seek to push their gas tanks to the limit and achieve hypermileage. I guess it must be a regular verb: hypermile, hypermiled, hypermiling. )