Technology

Tears of joy: Word of the year is not a word… but an emoji

In perhaps the ultimate reflection of modern communication, the word of the year chosen by Oxford Dictionaries is not a word at all, but an emoji. The icon of a yellow smiling face with two tears welling up in its eyes - known as “face with tears of joy” - was picked as the word or expression that has best captured the ethos, mood and preoccupations of 2015. A staple of teenagers sending text messages, the use of emojis in digital communications has exploded into mainstream culture over the past year, with US presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton trying to be hip by using them while talking to young voters and Andy Murray tweeting his wedding itinerary with the icons.

It’s not surprising that a pictographic script like emoji has stepped in to fill those gaps - it’s flexible, immediate, and infuses tone beautifully. Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Dictionaries

The face with tears of joy icon was the most widely used emoji in the world this year, research by Oxford University Press and mobile business technology firm SwiftKey showed. Its use in 2015 grew four-fold on the previous 12 months in the UK, where it accounts for 20% of all emojis used. While a “lumbersexual”, that young male urbanite sporting a beard and checked shirt, may be considered rather “on fleek”, or attractive, he is not quite en vogue enough to top the humble “face with tears of joy”. Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Dictionaries, said: “You can see how traditional alphabet scripts have been struggling to meet the rapid-fire, visually focused demands of 21st century communication.”