Emojis are taking over the world! Cartoon faces top 2014 list of the web’s most popular words

From tech terms and celebrity break-ups to world events, social media is giving experts more information than ever before than what people really talk about online.
A study has found that ‘emoji’,’ ‘futebol’, and ‘ghost plane’ – relating to the missing Malaysia Airlines plane – are the top trending words and phrases of the year so far.

The words and phrases were plucked from among millions used online in social media, blogs and global media.
The top trending word of the year so far is emoji – the small digital images used to express an idea or emotion in electronic communication – which are continuing to spread like wildfire online.

They are popularly used on social media sites and in emails and there have even been complaints that the current character set is not diverse enough.

Major global events hitting the news such as the actions of ‘V. V. Putin’, fighting in the ‘Crimea,’ the mystery of ‘ghost plane’ Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 and the ‘Mid Term Elections,’ feature in the list of 15 top trending words and phrases of 2014.

The recent astronomical event of the ‘blood moon’ and Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow’s ‘conscious de-coupling’ were two unusual events that captured the public’s imagination and were talked about online, while long-running issues including ‘climate change’ and ‘inflation’ continued to be of interest.

Texas-based Global Language Monitor (GLM) analysed and catalogued the latest trends in word usage and their impact on the various aspects of culture, with a particular emphasis on global English.

‘Not only is the English language adding a new word every 98 minutes, but it is also expanding the basis of word creation,’ said Paul Payack, chief word analyst at GLM.

‘The alphabet itself is now expanding beyond letters to numbers + (emoticons) diacritical marks + emoji (picture words).’
The words are collected from throughout the English-speaking world, which now numbers more than 1.83 billion speakers.

The company uses ‘NarrativeTracker technologies’ to perform its internet and social media analysis, which includes looking at the internet, blogosphere, the top 300,000 print and electronic global media, as well as new social media sources as they emerge.