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Words of 2013 round-up

By Alice Northover


Word of the Year season in the English-speaking world has come to a close. Oxford Dictionaries kicked off the annual reflection (and often infuriation) regarding words that were particularly relevant the past year. Here’s a brief round-up of the various words singled out by dictionaries, linguists, and enthusiasts.

woty2013wordcloud


And words of the year around the world also revealed some interesting trends:

Alice Northover is editor of the OUPblog and Social Media Manager at Oxford University Press.

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Recent Comments

  1. Nancy Friedman

    Thanks very much for the link to my list and for this excellent roundup.

    Språkrådet is Norwegian, not Swedish, and sakte-TV does indeed translate to “slow TV.” I’ve written about the slow TV phenomenon in Norway and elsewhere: http://bit.ly/1dkXjjK

  2. Alice Northover

    Thank you Nancy! I’ve corrected the above.

  3. […] In case you missed it, the American Dialect Society picked because as their Word of the Year (WOTY). At The Week, Arika Okrent took a closer look at because and other WOTY nominees such as catfish, -shaming, and binge-watch, and at Mental Floss gave us the words of the year from other countries. Meanwhile, the OUPBlog had their own round-up up of various WOTYs. […]

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