In a fierce competition between two words that will continue to bug the crap out of you in 2013, the Oxford English Dictionary has named "GIF" as the American word of 2012, finally recognizing the early Internet-era filetype's significance in modern language.
GIF beat out popular teen rally cry "YOLO" to take the Oxford English Dictionary's top honor stateside. Speakers of the Queen's English get "omnishambles" as their word of the year, which loosely translates to "massive clusterfuck" over here on the more crass side of the pond.
For those not hip to blogs like the ubiquitous What Should We Call Me, the live-giffed Election Tumblr, or (personal favorite) Editor Real Talk, a GIF is is a moving Internet photograph looped ad infinitum. Everyone from art museums to the President have embraced the 25-year-old artform as a mesmerizing means of visual communication. We happen to like it as a way to report on notable World Series plays:
The OED declined to provide one of those handy pronunciation keys for "GIF," however, leaving open a longstanding debate over how to verbalize the acronym. Personally, we're partial to pronouncing it like "gift," but without the "T." Because "jif" is peanut butter and you don't want to look stupid in front of your tweens. Or maybe you do? YOLO.
