How Oxford picks 'Word of the year'

New Delhi: 'Goblin mode', 'Vax', 'Climate Emergency', and 'Toxic' -- these are among the "Oxford Word of the Year" chosen in the last five years. Ever wondered, how these words are picked? Casper Grathwohl, President of Oxford Languages, elaborated the process in an interview with PTI from New York. "Each year, a team of lexicographers comes together from Oxford University Press to review the evidence and select the Oxford word of the year. In considering a word as a candidate for the word of the year, we look at various factors and analyse real language data.

"Frequency of use is one of the key indicators that a word may be a good candidate if it has a spike in usage that year, we then look and see what has been happening with that word and why it experiences such increased usage," he said. Grathwohl explained that the final word is chosen from a shortlist of around 30-40 words every year.

"Throughout the year, the Oxford University Press is marking candidates they think would make a potential word of the year. When the word of the year begins, we gather these together. We also send our queries to our staff asking them for candidates and we usually have a long list of 30-40 potential words of the year. We then go for the process of analysing language that has been nominated to move the list to shortest and eventually settle the word of the year," he said. Asked about whether "Word of the year" is also included in the dictionary, he said, "not necessarily".