Children's word of the year #2015
It seems that this year’s word of the year, deemed most popular amongst the use of children in the UK, isn’t actually a word.
Ironically the # symbol (or hashtag) cropped up most frequently in a recent survey by Oxford University Press, which monitored and evaluated 120,000 different short stories written by the children. The largest influencers this year appears to be that of mobile technology and social media, with an increased number of the new words words which were considered for the coveted title. 2015 witnessed entries such as the word vlogger, an abbreviated form of video blogger, defined as an online user who uploads videos of their daily thoughts onto video sharing websites including YouTube and Vimeo. Snapchat, selfie, Instagram and Whatsapp were other examples relating to mobile technology and social media that made their way into the top 20 list this year.
Included in the list of words that were not as popular as in the previous years were TV/television, Facebook, iPod, Nintendo, mp3, Wii etc. whereas PS4, iPhone and Macbook all rose in their usage since the turn of the year. Surprisingly, given the age of the subjects evaluated, current affairs was a prominent topic discussed in the short stories. The Ukrainian crisis, the Malaysian Airways crash and the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa were all events that featured in a number of the short stories.
ABOUT 3 YEARS AGO BY JAMES O'ROURKE