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LONDON -- Michelle Obama shared one with her "first dog" Bo, Hillary Clinton tweeted one with her daughter Chelsea. Now "selfie" -- the smartphone self-portrait -- has been declared word of the year for 2013, according to Britain's Oxford University Press.

The publisher of the Oxford Dictionaries said Tuesday that "selfie" saw a huge jump in usage in the past year, bursting from the confines of Instagram and Twitter to become mainstream shorthand for any self-taken photograph.

Researchers behind the renowned dictionaries pick a prominent word or expression in the English language each year that best reflects the mood of the times. Previous words of the year have included "unfriend" in 2009, "credit crunch" in 2008, "carbon footprint" in 2007 and "Sudoku" in 2005.

Judy Pearsall, the editorial director for Oxford Dictionaries, said "selfie" appeared to have been first used in 2002 on an Australian online forum, and the hashtag #selfie appeared on the photo-sharing website Flickr in 2004.

"But usage wasn't widespread until around 2012, when 'selfie' was being used commonly in mainstream media," she said.

Australian English sometimes uses the suffix "-ie" -- such as barbie for barbeque and tinnie for a can of beer -- which helps to explain where "selfie" may have come from, Pearsall added.

Oxford usually assigns a separate word of the year to the U.S. and to the U.K., but it said "selfie" captured the imagination on both sides of the Atlantic this year.

The term beat other buzzwords including "twerk," the sexually provocative dance move that got a huge boost in usage thanks to an attention-grabbing performance by pop star Miley Cyrus; "showrooming," the practice of visiting a shop to look at a product before buying it online at a lower price; and "Bitcoin," the digital currency that gained widespread media attention.

Also making the shortlist was "binge-watch," a verb that describes watching many episodes of a TV show in rapid succession.

The words were chosen by a research program that monitors online content and collects around 150 million words of English in use each month.

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'Selfie' decalred word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries

News

Danika Fears TODAY

11 hours ago

@beyonce/Instagram

Beyonce revealed her pixie cut on Twitter with a selfie in August.

The 'selfie' is ready for its close-up. On Monday evening, Oxford Dictionaries announced that the Internet-born noun is its international Word of the Year, beating out other of-the-moment verbs like binge-watch and twerk.

For the uninitiated few, 'selfie' officially means "a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website." Once an obscure word used on sites like Flickr, the 'selfie' has since become a widely-used term: Its frequency in the English language increased by a whopping 17,000 percent over the past year.

"Using the Oxford Dictionaries language research program, which collects around 150 million words of current English in use each month, we can see a phenomenal upward trend in the use of 'selfie'in 2013, and this helped to cement its selection as Word of the Year, Oxford Dictionaries Editorial Director Judy Pearsall said in a press release.

Oxford Dictionaries traces the origin of 'selfie' way back to 2002, when an Internet user included the word in a post on an Australian forum. It became more popular as a hashtag on Flickr in 2004, but didn't really find its way into mainstream mouths until 2012 with the help of Twitter and Instagram. That's when it became the subject of countless news stories, from Beyonce showing off her pixie cut to Michelle Obama playing with Bo on the White House lawn.

The spelling of the word has undergone an evolution, as it once ended with a -y instead of an -ie. The reason why could have something to do with the self-centered activity the world itself describes, according to Pearsall.

Read more here:
Oxford Dictionaries names 'selfie' word of the year

News

Danika Fears TODAY

11 hours ago

@beyonce/Instagram

Beyonce revealed her pixie cut on Twitter with a selfie in August.

The 'selfie' is ready for its close-up. On Monday evening, Oxford Dictionaries announced that the Internet-born noun is its international Word of the Year, beating out other of-the-moment verbs like binge-watch and twerk.

For the uninitiated few, 'selfie' officially means "a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website." Once an obscure word used on sites like Flickr, the 'selfie' has since become a widely-used term: Its frequency in the English language increased by a whopping 17,000 percent over the past year.

"Using the Oxford Dictionaries language research program, which collects around 150 million words of current English in use each month, we can see a phenomenal upward trend in the use of 'selfie'in 2013, and this helped to cement its selection as Word of the Year, Oxford Dictionaries Editorial Director Judy Pearsall said in a press release.

Oxford Dictionaries traces the origin of 'selfie' way back to 2002, when an Internet user included the word in a post on an Australian forum. It became more popular as a hashtag on Flickr in 2004, but didn't really find its way into mainstream mouths until 2012 with the help of Twitter and Instagram. That's when it became the subject of countless news stories, from Beyonce showing off her pixie cut to Michelle Obama playing with Bo on the White House lawn.

The spelling of the word has undergone an evolution, as it once ended with a -y instead of an -ie. The reason why could have something to do with the self-centered activity the world itself describes, according to Pearsall.

Here is the original post:
'Selfie' named word of the year

News

Danika Fears TODAY

11 hours ago

@beyonce/Instagram

Beyonce revealed her pixie cut on Twitter with a selfie in August.

The 'selfie' is ready for its close-up. On Monday evening, Oxford Dictionaries announced that the Internet-born noun is its international Word of the Year, beating out other of-the-moment verbs like binge-watch and twerk.

For the uninitiated few, 'selfie' officially means "a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website." Once an obscure word used on sites like Flickr, the 'selfie' has since become a widely-used term: Its frequency in the English language increased by a whopping 17,000 percent over the past year.

"Using the Oxford Dictionaries language research program, which collects around 150 million words of current English in use each month, we can see a phenomenal upward trend in the use of 'selfie'in 2013, and this helped to cement its selection as Word of the Year, Oxford Dictionaries Editorial Director Judy Pearsall said in a press release.

Oxford Dictionaries traces the origin of 'selfie' way back to 2002, when an Internet user included the word in a post on an Australian forum. It became more popular as a hashtag on Flickr in 2004, but didn't really find its way into mainstream mouths until 2012 with the help of Twitter and Instagram. That's when it became the subject of countless news stories, from Beyonce showing off her pixie cut to Michelle Obama playing with Bo on the White House lawn.

The spelling of the word has undergone an evolution, as it once ended with a -y instead of an -ie. The reason why could have something to do with the self-centered activity the world itself describes, according to Pearsall.

Continue reading here:
Word of the year is ... ?

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Kyle Hittle led five teammates into double-figure scoring as Incarnate Word defeated NAIA Huston-Tillotson 85-78 on Saturday.

Hittle scored a team-high 21 for the Cardinals (3-0) and also pulled down 11 rebounds. Denzel Livingston scored 14 for Incarnate Word, Ian Markoff 13 with 11 rebounds and Anthony Horton and Sam Burmeister each scored 11.

Incarnate Word owned a 49-35 advantage on the boards.

Terry Johnson scored a game-high 22 points and had 10 rebounds for the Runnin' Rams (0-4) with Darion Cooks adding 15 points, Sterling Lampley 14 and LaShawn Waters 12.

Back-to-back jumpers by Johnson and Cooks gave the Runnin' Rams the lead midway through a close first quarter that saw four lead changes and three ties. But Livingston led an 8-0 run for the Cardinals with a steal and a three-point play. Incarnate Word led by as many as 14 in the second half.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Incarnate Word defeats Huston-Tillotson 85-78