Language purists are not going to be happy with this latest linguistic development. In a first of its kind incident, the word of the year chosen by Oxford English Dictionary is not even a word to begin with, it’s an emoji. Oxford Dictionary’s lexicographers study linguistic trends every year and announce a word annually. In the past words like ‘GIF’ (2012), ‘selfie’ (2013) and ‘vape’ (2014) have made it to the list.

The close contenders this year were ‘dark web’, ‘refugee’, ‘they’ and ‘lumbersexual’, among others. However, needless to say, the emoticon won hands down.

“You [...]