The millionth English word is Web 2.0 !
Global Language Monitor, a US-based web monitoring firm, announced that the millionth English word is “Web 2.0″ !
The firm searches the web for newly coined terms, and once a word or phrase has been used at least 25,000 times, it is recognized as a word. This includes hybrid words in Chinglish (Chinese English), Hinglish (Hindi English), Spanglish (Spanish English), Hollywords (terms created by the film industry), computer jargon and words forged by the internet. (i wonder if those terms are official ‘words’ )
The five words leading up to the millionth clearly show how the language is influenced by current social trends.
The list included “Jai Ho!” an Indian exclamation signifying victory or accomplishment, and “slumdog,” popularized by the Oscar-winning movie “Slumdog Millionaire.” As well as, “Cloud computing” and “carbon neutral”… and last but not least my favourite.. a term used for newcomers to the gaming world… ”N00B”… with zeros for o’s. Obviously not a complimentary term.
On a bit of a trivia note.. the Web 2.0 conference in 2004 hosted by O’Reilly Media and Tim O’Reilly, was the same year that ‘Blogosphere’ and ‘Cybercrime’ officially became New Words in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary
