And the 2015 Word of the Year Is….

Am I seriously about to tell you that Oxford Dictionaries has given the title of Word of the Year 2015 to an EMOJI?

Nope, I'm going to let Oxford Dictionaries tell you themselves.

"That’s right – for the first time ever, the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year is a pictograph: 😂, officially called the ‘Face with Tears of Joy’ emoji, though you may know it by other names. There were other strong contenders from a range of fields... but 😂 was chosen as the ‘word’ that best reflected the ethos, mood, and preoccupations of 2015."

I don't know if this makes me more sad for humanity or angry with Oxford Dictionaries...because that face is obviously "Laughing At Someone Else's Demise." If they had described it that way, I could agree that they summed up 2015 perfectly.

So is this the first step to phasing out the English language and communicating solely through texts?

Here are the words that almost made it to number one:

• ad blocker, noun: A piece of software designed to prevent advertisements from appearing on a web page.
• Brexit, noun: A term for the potential or hypothetical departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union, from British + exit.
• Dark Web, noun: The part of the World Wide Web that is only accessible by means of special software, allowing users and website operators to remain anonymous or untraceable.
• on fleek, adjectival phrase: Extremely good, attractive, or stylish.
• lumbersexual, noun: A young urban man who cultivates an appearance and style of dress (typified by a beard and check shirt) suggestive of a rugged outdoor lifestyle.
• refugee, noun: A person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster.
• sharing economy, noun: An economic system in which assets or services are shared between private individuals, either for free or for a fee, typically by means of the Internet.
• they (singular), pronoun: Used to refer to a person of unspecified sex.