雙語笑話 第169期:“笑哭”表情符成牛津詞典“年度詞彙”

Oxford Dictionaries 'Word Of The Year' Is . . . An Emoji?

“笑哭”表情符成牛津詞典“年度詞彙”

We All know that life without emojis, (the small digital icons that we use ad nauseam) would be extremely boring. Hence, it is only fitting that the editors of the prestigious Oxford English Dictionary chose - The emoji with the tears of joy as its 'Word of the Year' for 2015.

我們都清楚，如果生活中少了這些表情符號的調味，會變得多麼無聊。那麼詞典界的權威——《牛津詞典》的編寫者把“哭笑”表情加入2015“年度詞彙”這件事，就顯得合情合理了。

The company that announced its unusual word choice on November 16th said that it was picked over several other traditional contenders. Among them were 'refugee', 'sharing economy' and 'on fleek'. However, it was this simple emoji that resonated with the editors because it appeared to best describe the "ethos, mood, and preoccupations of 2015."

11月16日，《牛津詞典》對外公佈了其對這個在其他傳統競爭者中殺出重圍的非傳統詞彙的選擇。 而那些傳統詞彙包括：“'refugee（難民）”、“sharing economy（股份制經濟）”和“fleek(連連)”。然而也正是這個簡單的表情符號引起了編寫者們的共鳴，因爲它最好的體現了2015年的社會思潮、人們的心情和關注點。

They also thought that this was a good year to pay homage to the emoji. For though they have been around since the late 1990's, the use of the digital icons and the word that describes them, has escalated sharply this year. Besides, emojis are now used by people of all ages, not just teenagers.

他們也覺得今年是關注表情符號的時候了。雖然這些電子表情符號在90年代末就出現了，但今年纔開始在世界迅速範圍火起來。除此之外，表情符號現在爲各年齡段人羣所使用，並不限於年輕人。

Also, though the word stems from the Japanese language - e (picture), moji (character or letter), the digital icons can be understood by everyone regardless of the language they speak. Hence it only makes sense to acknowledge their importance to global communication.

雖然這個詞起源於日語，e（日語中“圖片”詞彙的發音），moji(日語中“文字或字母”的發言)，這個表情符號卻爲各種語言的人羣所理解和喜愛。那麼現在把它的重要性上升到全球高度就不足爲奇了。

As to how they selected from the thousands of emojis that are available? The company says that they partnered with a leading mobile technology company SwiftKey to determine the most popular emoji. Turns out that 'tears of joy' is the most used icon. According to SwiftKey, made up 17% of all emojis used in the U.S. A and an astounding 20% in the United Kingdom!

編寫者們爲何從上千個表情符號中選中了“哭笑”表情呢？《牛津詞典》表示，他們是和電信公司領軍者SwiftKey公司合作，一起進行了篩選，最終發現“哭笑”表情最受歡迎。據SwiftKey公司稱，在美國所有的表情中該表情使用率爲17%， 在英國則有20%之多。

Though this is the first time the Oxford University Press has selected an image for its 'word of the year', it is not the first time they have tried to incorporate modern lingo into their 150-year-old publication. In 2013, in recognition of the growing popularity of self-portraits, the editors selected 'selfie,' for the 'Word of the Year'!

雖然發行150年之久的《牛津詞典》出版社第一次評選一個表情爲“年度詞彙”，但這並非他們第一次嘗試在詞典中加入潮詞。早在2013年，“自拍”大幅流行之時，編寫者們就把“Selfie(自拍照)”這個詞選爲了“年度詞彙”。

譯文屬原創，未經允許，不得轉載。