"TRUMP" has been named UK Children's World of the Year after analysis by Oxford University Press.
The US president was the most frequently mentioned public figure by children, with Trump beating Pokemon, as young people showed a greater use of election-related words and phrases this year.
The OUP released the findings after analysing 131,798 short stories for the BBC Radio 2 Chris Evans’ Breakfast Show’s 500 Words competition, which it said gives an insight into the lives of British children and also their use of English.
Trump was picked as Children’s Word of the Year because of a rise in use of 839 per cent on 2016 by entrants writing in this year’s competition and the way in which children used it to convey humour and satire, and evoke powerful descriptive imagery.
Vocabulary associated with the US presidency was more prevalent in 2017 than in 2016, including: president, America, wall, Hillary Clinton, White House, Trump Towers, Obama, Mexico and Putin.
Children have been playing with blends, suffixes and prefixes to create new words improvised around Trump, with more than 100 instances of words such as Trumplestilskin, Trumpyness, Trumpido, Trumpeon and Trumpwinningtastic.
Political vocabulary is a notable area of growth this year and reflected children’s engagement with the news and media.
The words politics and political show an increase of 115 per cent and 78 per cent respectively since last year.
New words and phrases in this year’s stories include Brexit, Article 50, fake news, and alternative facts.
Vineeta Gupta, head of children’s dictionaries at OUP, said: “This year, the stories demonstrate creativity, style and wit, all underpinned by a sophisticated use of grammar and language.
"From humorous punning to creating their own words, children have played and experimented with language with impressive results.
"The stories have not only provided us with infinite entertainment, but also contributed to language research for children’s dictionaries."
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