'Selfie?' I've been taking them for yeeeaaars, dahling! The word isn't exactly new, we've been using it since 2002. And the concept definitely isn't new, seeing as the first one was taken in 1839 by one Robert Cornelius. But a staggering 17,000% increase in its use over the past year has meant that 'selfie' has taken the crown as Oxford Dictionaries' 'Word of the Year' for 2013.
It had stiff competition from the likes of 'twerk' and 'binge-watch', but fought them off with unselfconscious vigour and now joins the likes of 'credit crunch' (2008) and 'omnishambles' (2012) in the pantheon of neologisms. Its next task is to gain respectability from an entry into the Oxford English Dictionary. A place in the Oxford Dictionaries Online, awarded in August this year, isn't quite sufficient.
For some, selfie is an indictment of the self-obsessed instant-gratification generation. Those of us in the know, however, aren't at all concerned by the self-portraiture arrivistes with their smartphones and duckfaces. And you can always keep one step ahead of the game with a little help from Haje's book!
Ooh! Ilex has some copies of Haje's Shooting Yourself to give away in honour of this momentous day! All the details are here!