Oxford Dictionaries USA announced the term “GIF” as its 2012 Word of the Year Monday, said Katherine Martin, head of U.S. dictionaries at Oxford University Press USA.
The word was coined 25 years ago as a noun meaning a graphic file format type. Now, “to GIF” means to create a picture or video file. GIF was chosen partly because its rise in usage as a verb showed how technological and social environments can transform words.
“It’s not just about Web developers,” Martin said. “It’s an action that many people are engaging in.”
UF economics freshman Karolina Niemiec said she thinks the word is an easy way for Americans to reference the graphic.
“We like taking short little names and creating a word out of it,” the 18-year-old said.
Other words considered for the honor included YOLO, an acronym for “You Only Live Once”; superstorm, a large, destructive storm; nomophobia, the fear of being without one’s phone; and MOOC, a free “massive open online course” for college students, Martin said.
YOLO and GIF, in its verb form, are not yet official words in the dictionary. Oxford Dictionaries USA waits until the grammar, spelling and usage guidelines become more consistent throughout society before it adds new terms, she said.
Previous years’ winners were “podcast” in 2005, “locavore” – someone who eats locally – in 2007, and “unfriend” in 2009, she said.
“They reflect the overall ethos of that particular year,” Martin said.
Oxford Dictionaries USA decided on the Word of the Year by observing language use, narrowing down a list and then asking employees’ opinions to get a broader perspective, she said.
Zac Totta, a UF sustainability and the built environment junior, has mixed feelings about the new Word of the Year.
Though the 21-year-old said he has laughed at a lot of them, Totta said he thinks they are representative of the country’s computer-addicted culture.
“GIFs and memes are total vices that people are really addicted to,” he said. “The fact that that’s the word of our year means that we’re using them too much.”
