Cantillon: Smiley face? Pass me the dictionary

Oxford Dictionaries this week announced the “face with tears of joy emoji” as word of the year 2015. Except it’s not a word, it’s a pictograph.

It is the first time in Oxford’s history that a symbol has been given the highest honour.

What’s more, it beat shortlisted finalists Brexit, ad-blocker and sharing economy to win the overall title.

The editors picked the image due to the “sharp increase in popularity of emoji” around the world last year.

They said the smiley face, which is laughing so much it’s crying, was chosen as the “word” that best reflected “the ethos, mood, and pre-occupations of 2015”.

Funnily, the crying with laughter face also best described the reaction of Twitter and the public to Oxford’s chosen word of the year, with several questioning whether Oxford Dictionaries was hacked.

Oxford Dictionaries president Casper Grathwohl said emojis are becoming an increasingly rich form of communication, one that transcends linguistic borders.

Technology is really consuming us now. First the word “selfie” was awarded word of the year, and now it’s an emoji.

Mirroring the rise of the emoji, selfie was named word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries in 2013, because of the drastic climb in its usage, as the mainstream term for a self-portrait photograph. Textspeak also dominated headlines that same year, with many asking if it is killing the English language.

Textspeak might not be killing language anymore, now that technology and emojis have taken that over.

In today’s fast-paced world, there seems to be less patience for lots of words, with everyone wanting answers immediately. And as the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.

We’ve come a long way from the days of hieroglyphs. Let’s just hope we don’t come full circle.