Oh, my God! English Language R.I.P? OK, I´ll go to the funeral...but first...let me take a #selfie.

"Selfie" (a photograph that one has taken of oneself with a smartphone or webcam  and uploaded to a social media website) has been named word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries editors, after the frequency of its usage increased by 17,000% over the past 12  months.

(in the UK) a reduction in the amount of housing benefit paid to a claimant if the property they are renting is judged to have more bedrooms than is necessary for the number of the people in the household, according to criteria set down by the government.

to watch multiple episodes of a television programme in rapid succession, typically by means of DVDs or digital streaming. [ORIGIN 1990s: from BINGE + WATCH, after BINGE-EAT, BINGE-DRINK.]

a digital currency in which transactions can be performed without the need for a central bank. Also, a unit of bitcoin. [ORIGIN early 21st century: from BIT, in the computing sense of "a unit of information" and COIN.]

a small furry mammal found in mountain forests in Colombia and Ecuador, the smallest member of the raccoon family. [ORIGIN 2013: diminutive form of OLINGO, a South American mammal resembling the kinkajou.]

a form of meat produced synthetically from biological tissue. [ORIGIN early 21st century: perhaps from SYNTHETIC and MEAT, influenced by the use of "- -, schm - -" as a disparaging or dismissive exclamation.]

the practice of visiting a shop or shops in order to examine a product before buying it online at a lower price. [ORIGIN early 21st century: from SHOWROOM, "a room used to display goods for sale".]

dance to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low, squatting stance. [ORIGIN 1990s: probably an alteration of WORK.]

Previous words of the year

2012 Omnishambles
2011 squeezed middle
2010 big society
2009 simples
2008 credit crunch
2007 carbon footprint
2006 bovvered
2005 sudoku
2004 chav