25. GIF Named Word of the Year

Date: November 12, 2012

The Oxford University Press named "GIF" the American Word of the Year. Katherine Martin, head of the U.S. dictionaries program at Oxford said, "GIF celebrated a lexical milestone in 2012, gaining traction as a verb, not just a noun." While we're a little bummed out that YOLO didn't win (it was a contender), GIF represents what was popular artistically, technologically, and culturally this year.

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