CYBERNAT is the most used indyref term one year on from the vote, according to experts.
Oxford Dictionaries charted the frequency of use of four of the terms most commonly used in the debate surrounding the historic vote, including cybernat, rUK, indyref and devo max.
Unsurprisingly, the use of all four terms peaked before the vote, with the most popular – devo max – used more than 10 times more often than the others in September 2014.
However, further analysis shows that while the frequency of all four has fallen dramatically, cybernat – defined by Oxford Dictionaries as a “pejorative term for an online supporter of Scottish independence” – is now used far more often than any other.
Work by New Monitor Corpus, which gathers millions of real examples of English in use from a wide variety of sources each month, shows it was used around three times more often than the others in June.
Oxford Dictionaries attribute this to news stories about online abuse directed at prominent Unionists including Harry Potter author JK Rowling, who donated to the Better Together campaign.
A spokesperson said: “This word hit its peak some time before the referendum, in June 2014, and didn’t have a significant rise when the vote came around. It might not be a coincidence that it was in June that JK Rowling donated to the Better Together campaign and received online abuse that was much documented in the media.
“A recent rise in use of cybernat may relate to various articles about abuse given on Twitter by independence supporters towards several political figures.”
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