Explained: ‘Homer’, Cambridge Dictionary's Word of 2022, and the Wordle link

The Cambridge Dictionary on Thursday announced its word of 2022 as ‘homer’.

The choice was inspired by  Wordle, a free online word puzzle game that became immensely popular on social media and was acquired by the New York Times.

But what does the word ‘homer’ have to do with Wordle?

Let’s take a closer look:

The word ‘homer’ is not related to the Greek poet or the Simpsons character, but a baseball term.

The website defines homer:

US informal short for home run : a point scored in baseball when you hit the ball, usually out of the playing field, and are able to run around all the bases at one time to the starting base.

Hindustan Times reported that the word ‘homer’ was searched for nearly 70,000 times alone during the first week of May 2022 because it was a Wordle answer.

Many people playing the game all over the world unfamiliar with baseball slang rush to look it up, then took to complaining about the word on social media.

‘‘When homer was the answer for May 5, speakers of American English immediately recognised it as an informal word for a home run in baseball. However, many players outside the US had not heard this word before. Huge numbers of players expressed their frustration and annoyance on social media, but many also turned to the Cambridge Dictionary to find out more,’’ the dictionary, explaining its choice, wrote on its blog.

The word “represented not only 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,” it added.

The other words that followed ‘homer’ were ‘humor’, ‘caulk’, ‘tacit’, and ‘bayou’, as per Cambridge dictionary.

The newspaper quoted Wendalyn Nichols, Cambridge Dictionary publishing manager, as saying: ‘‘The differences between British and American English are always of interest not just to learners of English but to English speakers globally, and word games are also perennially entertaining. We’ve seen those two phenomena converge in the public conversations about Wordle, and the way five-letter words have simply taken over the lookups on the Cambridge Dictionary website.’’

“Perhaps it’s no wonder that people enjoy the focus and mental challenge of a simple word game that can be a shared experience with family and friends, whether they’re physically together or not, at a time of volatility and prolonged recovery from a global pandemic,” Nichols further said.

“Even the complaints about the choice of words seem to be part of the fun.”

With inputs from agencies

Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News ,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook ,  Twitter  and  Instagram .