'Metaverse’ a top 3 contender for Oxford’s Word of the Year
The word “Metaverse” is one of three in the running to be crowned the Oxford "Word of the Year” (WOTY) in a competition run by the Oxford University Press (OUP), the publisher of the Oxford English Dictionary.
OUP officially announced the launch of the competition and its three finalist words for 2022 on Nov. 22 with this year marking the first time the public can participate in voting for the WOTY.
“Metaverse” will compete against the terms “#IStandWith” and “Goblin Mode”.
1️⃣ metaverseUsage increased as we discussed #hybrid working, debated the ethics, and wondered about the feasibility of an entirely online future. pic.twitter.com/Lk0pLfc1mW
In OUP’s video pitch for the Metaverse, it described it as “a hypothetical virtual reality environment in which users interact with one another’s avatars and their surroundings in an immersive way.”
“The term dates back to the 1990s, with the first recorded use in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1992 in the science fiction novel Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson,” the video stated.
Oxford noted that "Metaverse" has quadrupled in usage in Oct. 2022 compared to that of Oct. 2021. The video stated that more lifestyle and work-related activities taking place in virtual reality environments may bring about “more debates over the ethics and feasibility of an entirely online future.”
As for the other two WOTY candidates, “#IStandWith” has become an increasingly used phrase for political activism, while “Goblin Mode” emerged as a post-COVID-19 lockdown concept in which one rejects “returning back to normal” and instead does what they want to do.
As for how the three phrases were chosen, OUP stated that they ran an analysis on a language data system in order to narrow down the candidates to three.
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