Guess which is the Cambridge Word of the year 2022? And why?
The Cambridge Dictionary chose “Homer” as the word of the year for 2022, citing Wordle as its source of inspiration. In the first week of May 2022, when the answer for the word game Wordle was “homer”, people searched for it 75,000 times. The term "homer" in the context of the game does not allude to the Greek poet and author or a Simpsons character, but rather to an informal American English term for a baseball "home run." Over 65,000 searches were made on the dictionary website in a single day in 2022, according to Cambridge. Homer was the Wordle word of the day on May 5 this year, which is why it saw such a large increase in searches on that day. According to the dictionary website, British and American English use the same word in quite different ways. American English people readily recognized the word "homer" as a colloquial term for a baseball home run when it was the correct answer for the question on May 5’s Wordle. But many players outside of the US were unfamiliar with this term. Numerous players vented their dissatisfaction and frustration on social media, but many also visited the Cambridge Dictionary to learn more, according to the dictionary's blog. Homer was chosen as the Word of the Year 2022 because it "represented not just the enjoyment that so many of our users have found in being playful with language but also the challenges of learning English in an increasingly connected world," revealed the dictionary team.
