Word of the year

Desde 2004, um grupo de lexicógrafos da Oxford University Press, com base em um banco de dados, que contém cerca de 150 milhões de palavras, coletadas em jornais, revistas, livros, blogs e transcrições do inglês falado por pessoas de diferentes níveis de escolaridade, elege a Palavra do Ano, aquela que “reflete a síntese das preocupações daquele ano.

Aqui vai uma tabela dos dez últimos anos, tabela esta que abrange o Reino Unido e os Estados Unidos. No Brasil, para variar, nós não temos isso. Então, eu resolvi incluir nosso valente país nessa pesquisa:

Ano Reino Unido Estados Unidos Brasil

2007 carbon footprint locavore corrupção

2008 credit crunch hypermiling bandidagem

2009 Simples unfriend Michael Jackson

2010 big society refudiate caixa 2

2011 squeezed middle squeezed middle presidenta

2012 Omnishambles GIF desemprego

2013 selfie selfie protestos

2014 vape vape Copa do Mundo

2015 emoji emoji lava jato

2016 post-truth post-truth impeachment

Abaixo segue a explicação dessas palavras ou expressões:

1. carbon footprint: the total amount of greenhouse gases produced to directly and indirectly support human activities, usually expressed in equivalent tons of carbon dioxide (CO2).

2. locavore: a person who makes an effort to eat food that is grown, raised, or produced locally, usually within 100 miles of home.

3. credit crunch: an economic condition in which investment capital is difficult to obtain.

4. hypermiling: the use of fuel-saving techniques (as lower speeds and frequent coasting) to maximize a vehicle's fuel mileage.

5. Simples: an expression used to suggest that something can be done or understood with no difficulty.

6. unfriend (verb): remove (someone) from a list of friends or contacts on a social networking website.

7. big society: a concept whereby a significant amount of responsibility for the running of a society is devolved to local communities and volunteers.

8. refudiate (verb): blend of refute + repudiate, used loosely to mean “reject”.

9. squeezed middle: the section of society regarded as particularly affected by inflation, wage freezes and cuts in public spending during a time of economic difficulty, consisting principally of those on low or middle incomes".

10. omnishambles: a situation that is bad in many different ways, because things have been organized badly and serious mistakes have been made.

11. GIF (Graphics Interchange Format): a lossless format for image files that supports both animated and static images.

12. vape: inhale and exhale the vapour produced by an electronic cigarette or similar device.

13. the emoji of a face with tears of joy

14. post-truth: a word defined as relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.