'Hashtag' named word of the year

Hashtag was voted 'word of the year' by the American Dialect Society, proving that the tech world is closer to being fully embraced by the linguistic traditionalists. While the word has been around for decades the language group decided that it truly exerted its influence this year.

'This was the year when the hashtag became a ubiquitous phenomenon in online talk,' chair of the New Words Committee Ben Zimmer in the statement.

Hashtags initially became popular on Twitter, where users would put them within tweets to make a larger comment or joke. From there, it spread onto Facebook and everyday speech.

'In the Twittersphere and elsewhere, hashtags have created instant social trends, spreading bite-sized viral messages on topics ranging from politics to pop culture,' Zimmer said. Other contenders were also based around fads, like YOLO- the acronym for 'You Only Live Once'- and Gangnam style as a reference to the hit song of the same name.