When it comes to words, the sincerest form of flattery may be when a noun transcends its part of speech and becomes a verb. And such was the case with this year’s Oxford Dictionaries US Word of the Year for 2012.

GIF, as a verb, claimed the title this year. The definition, from Oxford: GIF verb to create a GIF file of (an image or video sequence, especially relating to an event): he GIFed the highlights of the debate.

For the uninitiated, while GIFs exploded onto the mainstream this year, their origin dates back to the 1980s, when the GIF

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