Earlier in the year, a campaign<\/a> was launched to have \u201cEssex Girl\u201d removed from the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). Those behind the campaign were upset at the derogatory definition \u2013 a young woman \u201ccharacterised as unintelligent, promiscuous, and materialistic\u201d \u2013 so wanted it to be expunged from the official record of the language.<\/p>\n The OED turned down the request, a spokeswoman<\/a> explaining that since the OED is a historical dictionary, nothing is ever removed; its purpose, she said, is to describe the language as people use it, and to stand as a catalogue of the trends and preoccupations of the time.<\/p>\n The words of the year tradition began with the German Wort des Jahres<\/a> in the 1970s. It\u2019s since spread to other languages, and in recent years has become increasingly popular the world over. Those in charge of the choices are getting more innovative: in 2015, for the first time, Oxford Dictionaries chose a pictograph as their \u201cword\u201d: the emoji for \u201cFace with Tears of Joy<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n This year, however, the verbal is very much back in fashion. The results speak volumes.<\/p>\n In English, there are a range of competing words, all the major dictionaries making their own choices. Having heralded a post-language era last year, Oxford Dictionaries decided on \u201cpost-truth<\/a>\u201d this time, defining it as the situation when \u201cobjective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief\u201d. In a year of evidence-light Brexit promises and Donald Trump\u2019s persistent lies and obfuscations<\/a>, this has a definite resonance. In the same dystopian vein, the Cambridge Dictionary chose \u201cparanoid<\/a>\u201d, while Dictionary.com went for \u201cxenophobia<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n Merriam-Webster valiantly tried to turn back the tide of pessimism. When \u201cfascism\u201d looked set to win its online poll, it tweeted<\/a> its readers imploring them to get behind something \u2013 anything \u2013 else. The plea apparently worked, and in the end \u201csurreal<\/a>\u201d won the day. Apt enough for a year in which events time and again almost defied belief.<\/p>\n Collins, meanwhile, chose \u201cBrexit<\/a>\u201d, a term which their spokesperson<\/a> suggested has become as flexible and influential in political discourse as \u201cWatergate\u201d.<\/p>\n Just as the latter spawned hundreds of portmanteau words whenever a political scandal broke, so Brexit begat \u201cBremain\u201d, \u201cBremorse\u201d and \u201cBrexperts\u201d<\/a> \u2013 and will likely be adapted for other upcoming political rifts for many years to come. It nearly won out in Australia in fact, where \u201cAusexit\u201d (severing ties with the British monarchy or the United Nations) was on the shortlist. Instead, the Australian National Dictionary went for \u201cdemocracy sausage\u201d<\/a> \u2013 the tradition of eating a barbecued sausage on election day.<\/p>\n Around the world, a similar pattern of politics and apprehension emerges. In France, the mot de l’ann\u00e9e<\/em> was \u201cr\u00e9fugi\u00e9s<\/em>\u201d<\/a> (refugees); and in Germany \u201cpostfaktisch<\/em>\u201d<\/a>, meaning much the same as \u201cpost-truth\u201d. Swiss German speakers, meanwhile, went for \u201cFilterblase<\/em>\u201d<\/a> (filter bubble), the idea that social media is creating increasingly polarised political communities<\/a>.<\/p>\n Switzerland\u2019s Deaf Association, meanwhile, chose a Sign of the Year for the first time. Its choice was \u201cTrump\u201d<\/a>, consisting of a gesture made by placing an open palm on the top of the head, mimicking the president-elect\u2019s extravagant hairstyle.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s hair also featured in Japan\u2019s choice for this year. Rather than a word, Japan chooses a kanji (Chinese character); 2016\u2019s choice is \u201c\u91d1\u201d (gold<\/a>). This represented a number of different topical issues: Japan\u2019s haul of medals at the Rio Olympics, fluctuating interest rates, the gold shirt worn by singer and YouTube sensation Piko Taro, and, inevitably, the colour of Trump\u2019s hair.<\/p>\n And then there\u2019s Austria, whose word is 51 letters long: \u201cBundespr\u00e4sidentenstichwahlwiederholungsverschiebung<\/em>\u201d<\/a>. It means \u201cthe repeated postponement of the runoff vote for Federal President\u201d. Referring to the seven months of votes, legal challenges and delays over the country\u2019s presidential election, this again references an event that flirted with extreme nationalism and exposed the convoluted nature of democracy. As a new coinage, it also illustrates language\u2019s endless ability to creatively grapple with unfolding events.<\/p>\n Which brings us, finally, to \u201cunpresidented<\/a>\u201d, a neologism Donald Trump inadvertently created when trying to spell \u201cunprecedented\u201d in a tweet attacking the Chinese. At the moment, it\u2019s a word in search of a meaning, but the possibilities it suggests seem to speak perfectly to the history of the present moment. And depending on what competitors 2017 throws up, it could well emerge as a candidate for next year.<\/p>\n Philip Seargeant<\/a>, Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics, The Open University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Every December, lexicographers around the world choose their \u201cwords of the year\u201d, and this year, perhaps more than ever, the stories these tell provide a fascinating insight into how we\u2019ve experienced the drama and trauma of the last 12 months. 2016 had potential. It was 500 years ago that Thomas More wrote his Utopia, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":4864,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[653,1275,1712,2200,2438],"class_list":["post-4863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-languages","tag-donald-trump","tag-languages","tag-philip-seargeant","tag-the-conversation","tag-word-of-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Dark days<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com\/files\/151383\/width754\/image-20161222-17301-1ct97g0.jpg\")
\nEPA\/Andy Rain<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com\/files\/151387\/width754\/image-20161222-17291-1oarhl4.jpg\")
\nAlbert H. Teich<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/counter.theconversation.edu.au\/content\/70715\/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic\")
<\/p>\n