Okay, so a lot happened in the UK this year. Like, a lot. Remember when we came second in Eurovision? That was this year. The Queen dying? That was this year too. And we’ve still got the World Cup to come, so things aren’t slowing down any time soon.
So how can we sum up 2022 in a word? It’s a pretty big task. But among all these life-altering events, there has to be one word that sticks out. So we turn to the experts, the Cambridge Dictionary, to make the call. And their chosen word? Drum roll, please. It’s homer.
No, really. The word of 2022 according to the guys over at Cambridge Dictionary is homer. And of course it all started with our old friend Wordle. You may (or may not) remember the controversy that exploded on May 5 this year, when the word of the day on the word-guessing app left players fuming. Homer wasn’t referring to the father of the Simpson family, by the way – it actually referred to an informal US word for a home run in baseball.
Don't want to talk about it... 130 day streak gone 🫡
— Josh 🫠 (@joshmo_ney) May 4, 2022
Wordle 320 X/6
⬛⬛⬛🟩🟩
🟨⬛⬛🟩🟩
⬛🟩⬛🟩🟩
⬛🟩⬛🟩🟩
⬛🟩⬛🟩🟩
⬛🟩⬛🟩🟩
Anyway, Wordle players in the UK had their winning streaks ended because of a word they didn’t even use, and they were not happy about it. They all started Googling and tweeting about it, and homer subsequently became the dictionary’s most-searched word of the year. And the words used most often alongside it? ‘Outraged’ and ‘furious’. Classic.
ICYMI: these are the most popular passwords in the UK.
Plus: can you guess the UK’s most-streamed song of all time?