‘Hashtag’ has been declared children’s word of the year.
The term for the symbol ‘#’ used on social media, has seen a huge increase in use by the under 13s, the Oxford University Press has revealed.
The word is used to add emphasis to a subject and is most commonly used on Twitter when a hot topic is ‘trending’.
The competition also showed that a worrying amount of children are now using slang words used from online social media in their short stories written in school.
Researchers looked at 120,421 entries to the competition, which was launched in 2011, to examine how British children use English.
They also found that the word ‘troll’ – meaning an internet bully – was talked about frequently.
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Hashtag is the UK’s children’s word of the year
The word ‘hashtag’ has been declared children’s word of the year after a huge increase in usage by under 13s.