Look for 'selfies' among the 'tuhao'

But explaining that a word has become popular enough to be part of our common language or dictionaries, begs the question, why. That could leave us with the chicken/egg dilemma in which we can speculate to our heart's content but never really get an answer or develop multiple answers that all seem to explain the phenomenon equally well.

One path to popular acceptance of a new word is certainly the source that coins the new word. A famous person may suggest a new word that is then gobbled up by the masses. One such word is "truthiness", coined by Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert. It means "truth that comes from the gut, not books". It is also an ironic word in that Colbert uses the word to mock a certain class of dogmatists who believe that they have all the answers. The word was chosen as the word that best summed up 2006 in an online survey conducted by Merriam-Webster in early 2007.

But a word need not have celebrity roots to capture the public's imagination. Selfie, for example, is credited to a drunken Australian, though he denies original authorship.

It's pretty clear, though, that there is no master key that guarantees a new word public acclaim.

What is clearer is that new words like tuhao and selfie reflect an interesting social phenomenon. The fact that China has a newly emerging wealthy class that exhibits boorish behavior would be unsurprising to the French or Americans who have many examples of vulgar and ostentatious nouveaux riches. The wealthy become social targets since they highlight stark economic differences.

Similarly, selfie as a social commentary speaks volumes about the current generation of young people, too enamored with its own image. Of course, adolescent egocentrism is hardly new. Psychologist David Elkind, writing nearly half a century ago, said that young people's thinking is distorted because they are consumed with themselves and unable to effectively function in society because of a skewed version of reality.

Maybe, then, some of our new words don't so much reflect new understandings or describe a new phenomenon, but merely give new faces to old ideas.

The author is a fellow at the Institute for Analytic Journalism.

Selfies of the year 2013

Winners of 'Selfies of 2013'