For Writing, the Writing is on the Wall…
Thousands of years from now, archaeologists will sift through the rubble of our civilization in an effort to determine how and when it collapsed. Perhaps they will pinpoint 2015 as a significant point in the Narrative of Ruin, for that is the moment in which the written word no longer became necessary, when conventional language gave up the battle to chronicle our culture, and we were content to communicate our needs, desires, greatest hopes, and deepest terrors with little pictures instead of continuing a literate tradition that had helped humanity understand and define the world for millennia. The Oxford Dictionary Word of the Year is … an emoji. Not the word emoji, you understand, but an actual icon.
“That’s right – for the first time ever, the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year is a pictograph,” boasts the Oxford Dictionary blog with all the glee of Nero plucking his lyre, the carelessness of Julius Caesar at Alexandria, and the zealotry of Diego de Landa in Maní. The Dictionary has chosen the ‘Tears of Joy’ emoji after it found that the crying emoji is the most popular one in the world. Oxford Dictioanries teamed up with mobile technology business SwiftKey, and discovered that the Tears of Joy emoji “made up 20% of all the emojis used in the UK in 2015, and 17% of those in the US: a sharp rise from 4% and 9% respectively in 2014.” Other contenders for Word of the Year were Brexit, lumbersexual, ad blocker, and refugee.
