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The Oxford 'word' of the year is... not an actual word

This article is more than 12 months old

Well, they do say a picture can paint a thousand words.

In the case of the particularly popular   — or Face with Tears of Joy emoji, to give its official name — it represents the word of the year.

That emoji is now The Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year — the first time this honour goes to a pictograph.

Oxford Dictionaries said on its website: "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."

 made up 20 per cent of all emojis used in the UK and 17 per cent in the US.

While the usage of emojis have been around since the late 1990s, there has been a surge of people using emojis this year.

There are over 800 to chose from. 

No longer used solely by teens eschewing actual words, emojis are now embraced by anyone with a smart phone as a "nuanced form of expression", said Oxford.

 

And of course,  is undoubtedly the most popular emoji - used around the world by regular people, celebrities and brands.

Keyboard app SwiftKey analysed over 1 billion pieces of emoji data across 16 languages to create a report on who uses which emoji most.

1. Happy faces were the most used, from a simple smile to blowing kisses. A whopping 44.8 per cent of all emojis are happy.

2. Second most used? Sad faces. The crying emoji was the overall favourite to express sadness - followed by the fear, unamused, and pensive. Sadness accounts for 14.33 per cent of all emojis used.

3. Many know French as the language of love and France is the only country where the Smiley emoji is not the most used. 

They use the 'heart' emoji  more than four times the average number — 55 per cent of emojis sent in France were hearts.

Russians use three times more romantic emojis (kiss mark, love letter, couple kissing) than average.

However, Malaysians could be seen as least romantic when it comes to emoji usage.

Only 4.8 per cent of emojis used in Malaysia were hearts.

4. That said, Malaysians have the largest emoji vocabulary.

The Top 10 symbols make up just 37 per cent of all the emojis used. Which means Malaysians don't go for the usual suspects.

Compare that to Turkey, where the Top 10 symbols make up 57 per cent of all their emojis used. 

 

5. Canadian English users use more violent emojis than anyone else, over 50 per cent more than average.

6. Not to suggest any stereotyping, but Australians use double the average amount of alcohol and booze-themed emojis

That said, Brazilians and US Spanish speakers use the beer emoji most of all.

Australia also uses almost twice as much junk food emojis than anyone else.

7. Those naughty Canadians are twice as likely to use raunchy innuendo-tinged emoji than any other language.

And entering the world of TMI, Canadians also outnumber their US neighbours in the use of the poop, beer and gun emojis.

 

How well do you know your emoji?

 

 

 

 

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