With a little over 10 days of 2014 remaining, an annual vote has been held in China for people to nominate the key characters or words that best sum up the year. It is an indicator of how Chinese people perceive the events of the year gone by and of future shifts in language trends.

The most used buzz words and characters were announced in Beijing on Dec 19.

The character "Fa" came top of the list. It means "law" and reflects a strong public desire for a more effective and just legal system in China. It was chosen from a shortlist of ten words that received the most votes online.

"Fanfu," which translates as anti-corruption, was the top word of 2014. China’s massive campaign against corruption garnered a lot of attention both in and beyond China.

"This is much more than a word game. It reflects the beauty of the Chinese language and the concerns and hopes of the people. The words and characters used are closely related to the daily lives of Chinese people," said Yu Dianli, general manager of The Commercial Press.

There were also individual categories, covering media, the economy and public well-being. Entrepreneur Ma Yun’s name featured very heavily on websites and search engines in 2014, after he became Asia’s richest man with the US sell-off of his Alibaba group.