“Selfie” beats "Twerk" to become word of the year

“Selfie” – the process of taking a picture of yourself – has been named word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries

It’s happening… words usually reserved for social media sites and hip young cats are slowly starting to disseminate out into the wider public consciousness. And the latest one to get an official thumbs up from Oxford Dictionaries is “selfie”.

The word has evolved from a niche social media tag into a mainstream term for a self-portrait photograph, according to Oxford Dictionaries. In the past year usage of the word selfie has increased 17,000%, surpassing even the mighty “twerk” and the lesser known but equally descriptive “schmeat”. 

“Selfie,” reports the BBC, “is defined by Oxford Dictionaries as "a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website.” 

Any word can qualify for word of the year but to actually win the prize of being word of the year it has to have undergone a meteoric rise within the past 12 months. Usage of the word selfie has increased 17,000% during the past year.

Oxford Dictionaries uses a research programme to collect around 150 million English words currently in use from around the web each month. The software can also be used to track the emergence of new words and monitor changes in geography, register, and frequency of use.