The Oxford Dictionary word of the year has been revealed, and if you’ve ever heard of it… We salute you.
*drumroll please*
It’s… ”post-truth”.
Yes, post-truth.
The word is 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.
The most popular and relevant word of 2016 is “post-truth” thanks to a huge spike around the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s successful US presidential bid.
The adjective, which describes circumstances where emotions strive over facts and reason, rocketed in use by around 2,000% since last year, according to the dictionary.
Whatever your thoughts, at least this year it’s actually a word, after last year’s tragic winner, the “face with tears of joy” emoji.
Oxford dictionaries president, Casper Grathwohl, stated that the word was “dominated by highly charged political and social discourse”.
Fuelled by the rise of social media as a news source and a growing distrust of facts offered up by the establishment, ‘post-truth’ as a concept has been finding its linguistic footing for some time.
We first saw the frequency really spike this year in June with buzz over the Brexit vote and again in July when Donald Trump secured the Republican presidential nomination.
Basically, as far as we’re grasping, it means ‘you’ve been totally shafted’ in one word.
So, 2016 in one word then.
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