"Selfie" chosen as Oxford Dictionary's word of the year for 2013

Listen to the full audio story

Download the MP3

Every year the Oxford Dictionary chooses a word of the year. Coming out on top over "twerk", "binge-watch", and "shmeat", is "selfie" as 2013's word of the year.

Linguists from the dictionary cited a 17,000% increase in the word's use over the past year as the reason for it being chosen. The group surveys the Internet and collects 150 million words used in the English language every month to keep the dictionary up to date. 

The word first appeared on an online Australian forum in 2002 and gained Internet popularity on Flickr in 2004. It wasn't until 2012, however, that the word took off in popularity.

In this story, we hear from a USC linguistics professor, a selfie enthusiast, and a professional portrait photographer.

See our ARN Tuesday crew get in on the selfie craze below!