'Omnishambles' and 'Gif' become words of the year


dictionary

Words, words, words. We use them every day and they constantly evolving and they're great. Personal favourite? Nautical. But I digress.

Oxford Dictionaries have chosen their words of 2012 already with contention between the British and American versions. The Queen's English team are going with 'Omnishambles' while America are going with the more technological 'Gif'. Described as "a situation that has been comprehensively mismanaged, characterized by a string of blunders and miscalculations", omnishambles was chosen due to its popularity and use in both descriptions of London during the Olympics and the US election campaign, as well as its "linguistic productivity".

Gif (short for graphics interchange format) was chosen due to the explosion of animated images in the last year out of all the major events happening around the world, and the proliferation of their use around the web.  Gif's win is more to do with its transition from noun to verb, as "to gif" something and "being gifed" became common usages. If your looking for good examples of the format, Tumblr is the place to go. (Beware, you can lose yourself for days in there.)

At the end of the day, it's an excuse to break out this cheesetastic hit. Because at the end of the day, words are all you have to take a heart away.

 

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