Antedating of "selfie"

Ben Zimmer bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM
Tue Nov 19 02:50:06 UTC 2013


With "selfie" being named Oxford's Word of the Year, the 2002 cite
discovered by Hugo is getting a lot of attention...

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2013/11/word-of-the-year-2013-winner/


On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 4:52 AM, Hugo <hugovk at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> "Selfie" has been added to Oxford Dictionaries Online in today's August quarterly update (not yet in OED):
> http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/august-2013-update/
>
> ODO, "early 21st century":
> http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/selfie
>
> Urban Dictionary, 29 July 2009:
> http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Selfie&defid=4142844
>
> ---
>
> The earliest I found is in ABC Online Forum (Dr. Karl's Self-Service Science), 13 September 2002:
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> From: Hopey ®   13/09/2002 15:19:29
> Subject: re: Dissolvable stitches       post id: 169902
> Um, drunk at a mates 21st, I tripped ofer and landed lip first (with front teeth coming a very close second) on a set of steps. I had a hole about 1cm long right through my bottom lip. And sorry about the focus, it was a selfie.
> [End excerpt]
>
> Source: http://www2b.abc.net.au/science/k2/stn/archives/archive32/newposts/169/topic169861.shtm
>
> The date looks plausible, the oldest in the Internet Archive is 2004: http://wayback.archive.org/web/20040117090107/http://www2b.abc.net.au/science/k2/stn/archives/archive32/newposts/169/topic169861.shtm
>
> Here's the selfie: http://wayback.archive.org/web/20040118000958/http://mcs.une.edu.au/~nhope/lip.jpg
>
> Oh, and the EXIF information embedded in the photo file is also dated 13th September 2002.

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