Children's Word Of The Year Is Hashtag

Oxford University Press has declared hashtag as the children’s word of the year.

16:47 28 May 2015

Technology is indeed a huge part of children’s lives. According to Oxford University Press (OUP), hashtag, which is frequently used in social media, is this year’s children’s word. 

 

OUP analysed more than 120,421 short stories by children aged between five and 13 years and some of the words that are frequently used aside from hashtag include Instagram, Snapchat, and emoji. Meanwhile, the world phone is now more popular than television. 

Vineeta Gupta at the Oxford University Press said: "This has been a significant change in usage in this year, 2015.

"Children have extended its [#] use from a simple prefix or as a search term for Twitter to an editorial device to add drama or comment."

 

Other technology-related words that are rarely used include iPod, mp3, and Blackberry. In their place are iPhone, chat app WhatsApp and messaging site ooVoo. 

 

Children were also writing about watching videos but the stories revolved around how many his, shares, and likes. They also write about popular characters such as Cinderella, footballer Lionel Messi, Snow White, and Wayne Rooney. A quite number of children also write about mythological characters such as Zeus, the Minotaur, and Hercules.