When the word nerds (a term of endearment1, I swear) at the Oxford2 English Dictionaries sat down to consider which word commanded enough prominence3 during the course of 2013 to be named the official word of the year, the choice was obvious.
当编写《牛津英语字典》的书虫们（我发誓这绝对是爱称）坐在一起，考虑哪个词在2013年特别突出，足以提名成为官方年度词时，这个答案是显而易见的。
In an unusual unanimous decision, the group awarded the honor to two
syllables4 which, when combined in a particular order, best describe the
paradoxical（矛盾的，诡论的） nexus5 of
narcissism6（自恋） and shared social experience known as the "selfie."
In case you aren't as
hip7 as a reference librarian, here's the official definition for selfie (sometimes "selfy"):
a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website.
The word was originally added to Oxford's quite broad online dictionaries in August. Being declared the "it" word for 2013 means that selfies have been all over this year. Indeed, in its blog post announcing the selection, Oxford explained, "If it is good enough for the Obamas or the pope, then it is good enough for Word of the Year."
Some credit is likely due to Instagram for taking selfies this far, and I'm a little surprised that instagram, the verb, (as in: "I'm totally going instagram that sunset with some hella-subtle filters") has not yet made it into the Oxford
vernacular8（方言）.
Then again, selfies were being taken long before Instagram. According to Oxford Dictionaries' research, the phrase has been
spotted9 online as early as 2002 in
forum10 postings. MySpace and Flickr first helped popularize the term, but it wasn't until 2012 that it began to surface in
mainstream11 media. It really took off this year, though -- with the word's frequency of usage increasing five-fold between March and August.
So it appears selfies are here to stay for a while, which is OK with me, but I am concerned about the creation of related terms that Oxford also makes note of, such as "helfie" (a picture of one's own hair) or "belfie" (a picture of one's own posterior).
The old phenomenon of body parts pressed against the glass of the office copier was bad enough; the last thing we need is a belfie meme. The only thing worse might be the meta-meme in response to such a trend -- and I really don't have any interest in seeing my Facebook feed filled with "barfies."
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