Oxford Dictionary Declares "Post-Truth" As The Word Of The Year (Um, Should We Be Worried?)

Oxford Dictionaries has crowned "post-truth" as the 2016 international word of the year, in light of a "highly-charged" political 12 months.

The BBC reports use of the word "post-truth" increased during this year's political campaign, including June's Brexit vote and the US presidential election.

The dictionary defines "post-truth" as "relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief."

Oxford Dictionaries' Casper Grathwohl was quoted saying post-truth could become "one of the defining words of our time."

Usage of the word increased by 2,000 per cent in 2016, compared to last year. Grathwohl explained the spike as being, "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," he said.

Post-truth Pat. Post-truth Pat. Post-truth Pat and his black-is-white cat.

— Joel Morris (@gralefrit) November 16, 2016

Dr Claire Hardake, a lecturer in forensic linguistics at Lancester University, spoke to the BBC about trends in the creation of new words. She said, "When you look back at the dictionary, you get some words that are a spasm of history and they very quickly fall out of use."

"They are fashionable, they are trendy and they die."

Here are some other words which made the 2016 "word of the year" shortlist (but didn't take the cake): adulting, alt-right, brexiteer, chatbot, coulrophobia, glass cliff, hygge, latinx and woke.

Last year, Oxford Dictionaries chose a "pictograph" as its word of the year. The "face with tears of joy emoji" was the most accurate representation of "the ethos, mood, and preoccupations of 2015".

If "post-truth" best represents our society today, maybe we should be concerned (just a little).

Photo: iStock