BUMBLEBEE, sapling and assassin? Dorset children’s top ten words revealed.

Refugees, Tim Peake, Star Wars, Shakespeare, and social media are just some of the events, people, and subjects that influence British children’s creativity and use of language, says a report published today by Oxford University Press.

Following OUP’s analysis of the 123,436 entries for the 2016 BBC Radio 2 Chris Evans Breakfast Show’s 500 WORDS short story competition, a wealth of fascinating insights into the lives of British children and their imaginative use of English have emerged. ‘Refugee’ is the Children’s Word of the Year, due to a significant increase in usage by entrants writing in this year’s competition combined with the sophisticated context that children were using it in and the rise in emotive and descriptive language around it.

And in Dorset the Top 10 words which are used more than any other are:

  1. bumblebee
  2. sapling
  3. xbox
  4. saber
  5. seed
  6. chapter
  7. emperor
  8. piggy
  9. assassin
  10. rebellion

The winners of this year’s competition will be announced live on-air tomorrow in a special broadcast of the Breakfast Show live from Shakespeare’s Globe, Bankside, in London. This year, HRH Duchess of Cornwall is an Honorary Judge. Her Royal Highness will attend the Final and present the Gold winners’ prizes. Celebrities including Julie Walters, Warwick Davis, Andy Serkis, Nick Jonas and Raleigh Ritchie will be reading out the Bronze, Silver, categories (5-9 and 10-13 years).

In the children’s writing the top ten characters mentioned in the short stories were:

1) Santa Claus

2) Zeus

3) Lionel Messi

4) Cristiano Ronaldo

5) Adolf Hitler

Joint 6th) William Shakespeare and Cinderella

7) Snow White

8) Tim Peake

9) James Bond

10) Harry Potter.

This being the year of Shakespeare 400 (marking four centuries since his death), the Bard makes an appearance in the Top 10 for the first time ever, and many of his characters’ names, such as Banquo and Prospero show a 1,000 percent increase in use, whilst Fleance, Orsino, and Malvolio are used for the first time.

David Cameron is the most frequently mentioned politician closely followed by US figures Barack Obama and Donald Trump.