Oxford University Press crowns # the ‘children's word of the year’
Hashtag has been dubbed the most popular word of UK youths, according to research from the Oxford University Press.
Analysing 120,421 short stories written by kids aged between five and 13 years old for the BBC’s 500 Words competition, the OUP found that hashtag was the most commonly used buzzword, acknowledging that technology is becoming a larger part of young peoples’ lives.
Mobile was used more often than TV and terms like Snapchat, Instagram and emoji saw a surge.
Vineeta Gupta at the Oxford University Press, told the BBC: “This has been a significant change in usage in this year, 2015.
“Children have extended its [#] use from a simple prefix or as a search term for Twitter to an editorial device to add drama or comment.”
Researchers found that one of the most common storylines was finding fame through YouTube.
Meanwhile the most popular characters in the stories were Cinderella, Lionel Messi, Snow White, Adolf Hitler and Wayne Rooney.