POST -TRUTH

             Oxford Dictionaries has declared "POST-TRUTH " as its 2016 international word of the year, reflecting what it called a "HIGHLY-CHARGED" political 12 months.

            It is defined as an adjective relating to circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than emotional appeals.

              Its selection follows June's Brexit vote and the US presidential election.

            Oxford Dictionaries' Casper Grathwohl said post-truth could become "one of the defining words of our time".

            Post-truth, which has become associated with the phrase "post-truth politics", was chosen ahead of other political terms, including "Brexiteer" and "alt-right" from a shortlist selected to reflect the social, cultural, political, economic and technological trends and events of the year.

            Oxford Dictionaries says post-truth is thought to have been first used in 1992.

              However, it says the frequency of its usage increased by 2,000% in 2016 compared with last year.

          Mr Grathwohl said:

                 "Fuelled by the rise of social media as a news source and a growing distrust of facts offered up by the establishment, post-truth as a concept has been finding its linguistic footing for some time," he said.

            "We first saw the frequency really spike this year in June with buzz over the Brexit vote and again in July when Donald Trump secured the Republican presidential nomination.

            "Given that usage of the term hasn't shown any signs of slowing down, I wouldn't be surprised if post-truth becomes one of the defining words of our time."

             Oxford Dictionaries has selected “post-truth” as 2016's international word of the year, after the contentious “Brexit" referendum and an equally divisive U.S.presidential election caused usage of the adjective to skyrocket, according to the Oxford University Press.

             The dictionary defines “post-truth” as “Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”

           In this case, the “post-” prefix doesn't mean “after” so much as it implies an atmosphere in which a notion is irrelevant — but then again, who says you have to take our word for it anymore?

             Throughout a grueling presidential campaign in which accusations of lies and alternate realities flowed freely, in every direction, hundreds of fact checks were published about statements from both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

         Dozens of media outlets found that Trump's relationship with the truth was, well, complicated.

          “We concede all politicians lie,” conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin wrote in September. “Nevertheless, Donald Trump is in a class by himself.”

        “Post-truth” usage spiked again in July after Trump secured the Republican presidential nomination.

           "It’s not surprising that our choice reflects a year dominated by highly-charged political and social discourse,” Grathwohl said. “Fueled by the rise of social media as a news source and a growing distrust of facts offered up by the establishment, post-truth as a concept has been finding its linguistic footing for some time.”

            "We choose words that are going to highlight the interplay between our words and our culture,” Martin said. The final word of the year is meant to be one that captures the “ethos, mood or preoccupations of that particular year and to have lasting potential as a word of cultural significance.”

               “I have never been a fan of the word 'post-truth,' since it’s a facile way to describe basic human behavior since the first words were spoken,” The Fact Checker's Glenn Kessler said in an email. “People have always been swayed by emotions and personal beliefs. As fact checkers, we give people the factual information and context for statements made by politicians. What people do with those facts is up to them.”

           Each year, the Oxford staff selects hundreds of words, then narrows that list down through discussions about “what words are going to best highlight the ways in which the English lexicon is changing in response to current events,” said Martin, Oxford's head of U.S. dictionaries.

          The word, selected by Oxford’s editors, does not need to be coined in the past year but it does have to capture the English-speaking public’s mood and preoccupations. And that makes this one an apt choice for countries like America and Britain, where people lived through divisive, populist upheavals that often seemed to prize passion above all else—including facts.

"post-truth: relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief."

*725 words and *4,837 characters.