One millionth English 'word' is... Web 2.0

It's official: The one millionth English "word" is "Web 2.0", which secured the the crown earlier today, beating "Jai Ho!"*, "n00b" and "Slumdog" in the race to linguistic glory in the process. That's according to the Global Language Monitor, which was uncannily able to predict back in May the exact moment this milestone would …

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a word?

Im wondering. Is Web 2.0 actually a word? Or a word and two numbers.

Same as Jai Ho is two words

[SuperTim]

Bollocks....

Is all i can say. They must have been living under a rock if they have only just noticed Web2.0 (which was around en-masse way before "cloud computing").

Nobends!

Mine's the one with the Concise OED in the pocket.

[Anonymous Coward]

Conclusion:

A load of bollocks.

[Gavin Chapman]

What?

Since when is 'web two point oh/zero' a single word?

[Raspy32]

Re:Not a word?

Well exactly - it's not a word but a phrase, it's the already recognised word "Web" followed by a whole number expressed with a single decimal place.

So if they've actually included "words" such as this in order to make up the million, we're probably realistically at around 750K true "words".

[Liam Tipler]

w t f??????

"Jai Ho!"*, "n00b" and "Slumdog"

Jai Ho is 2 words and is Hindi, n00b isnt even a word and web 2.0 is a phrase.

this is a disgrace. no wonder 90% of school age kids speak like they are retarded. (yes i know i didn't capitalise but im in a rush :)

[Snake Plissken]

If 25,000 repetitions count

Twitter would have made it purely on the Guardian website alone.

[Ed Blackshaw]

I call bullshit

What are they trying to sell?

[h00f zillá]

What 'word' is next?

"Left-handed golf club?"

[Jerome 0]

Morons

So they're claiming that there weren't more than 25,000 mentions globally of the phrase "Web 2.0" before 10:22 am this morning? I wish.

[Nimrod]

Complete Tosh

Given Websters and the OED have over 600,000 words each and there is approx 30% of words in each that are not in the other lust these 2 dictionaries give us close to 1m words if we then add on the unique words in the many specialist dictionaries then English passed the 1m mark a long time ago.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bollox...

I bet they've still missed 'pericombobulation'

[Anonymous Coward]

Suggestion

Since phrases are fair game for this, can we know where "Bulgarian Air-Bags" appears in this list, or if it hasn't made it yet, can we all start saying "Bulgarian Air-Bags" a lot more please? I just happen to like the term "Bulgarian Air-Bags" and "Bulgarian Air-Bags" deserve their places.

There, 5 more to add to the count for "Bulgarian Air-Bags"

[Chris 2]

Oh dear

All this rubbish really proves is that "Global Language Monitor" are a bunch of mindless jerks who have a pretty nifty line in getting the media to talk about their mindless jerking.

Web 2 point OH FUCK OFF.

[Martin 19]

I'm disappointed

that NO major newspaper managed, during the debate the other month about the disestablishment of the C of E, to use the word 'antidisestablishmentarianism' once. The one opportunity to seriously use that word, in a lifetime, and they passed it up.

Rubbish.

[johnnytruant]

A quick google...

Gives 'Results 1 - 10 of about 76,300,000 for "web 2.0"'

So there have been 76,275000 new mentions of "web 2.0" since 10:22 this morning?

I, too, wonder what they're selling...

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh?

Who the feck says 'Jai Ho', apart from in reference to the film/song?

Am I missing something here?

Ok, a quick google reveals it means 'may victory be yours', but still.. who's saying it so often that it's become a fecking word now? (and one word at that?!)

I guess I'm moving in all the wrong circles..

*makes mental note to work it into casual conversation at the pub later*

[Scott A. Brown]

Words with numbers in...

...aren't words, surely? Otherwise 'Derby County 0' would've got into the dictionary last year. A 2 word phrase such as 'cloud computing' isn't a word either.

Seriously though, when I first read about this 1,000,000th word thing I was quite interested. I didn't realise it was going to be complete bollocks.

I still remember when 'bonk' made it into the dictionary (though not my Firefox spellchecker, I notice, along with Firefox and spellchecker). Now THAT was news.

[Anonymous Coward]

@ Nimrod

I find myself thinking that might not terribly well qualified to comment upon matters of the English language, given the various errors of grammar, syntax and style your post manages to so succinctly comprise. I would also criticise your punctuation, but its complete absence bar a solitary full stop rather renders this exercise futile.

[Anonymous Coward]

According to Yahoo Search

there are 305 Million unique pages on the internet containing the phrase "Web 2.0"

[jake]

From their own FAQ ...

"Q. Do you count variations of words such as run, runs and running as separate words?

A. GLM counts only headwords, so run, runs, and running are only counted once."

So "Web 2.0" is just a variation of "Web", then, and not a word of it's own?

Paul JJ Payack is a puerile, self-serving idiot. Ignore him. Most real linguists do.

[Anonymous Coward]

@ complete tosh

I agree, but you must remember this is an American saying it - the ones with the funny billions and trillions. So do they mean 100,000 and not 1,000,000?

[Martin 37]

Obligatory Simpsons ..

Please tell me that cromulent and embiggen are already in there.

[Martin 37]

It's a fraud!

I've checked. The Global Language Monitor thingie does not recognise embiggen or cromulent, but Google does:

Results 1 - 10 of about 117,000 for embiggen. (0.11 seconds)

Results 1 - 10 of about 66,400 for cromulent. (0.44 seconds

Pah!

[Christopher Ahrens]

Thats it

Anyone wnat my English-speaking capability? I am going to go learn a new language, move to Siberia.

[armyknife]

colour me skeptical

UberBollocks*

*have a coined a new word ?

[disgruntled yank]

far from Stratford-upon-Avon

The UK is far from Stratford-upon-Avon? Silicon Valley counts as non-US? I learn something every day.

[Sooty]

Hindi expression

So...not English and not a word then, good list!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like some kind of vicious comsumption.

I despair sometimes.

[Camilla Smythe]

Yup, Sorry About That.....

I was the millionth visitor to a website for the chance of a BMW and the answer to the question was WEB 2.0

It's a bit of a trick question tho'

A modern WEB 2.0 internet term is

A) WEB 2.0

B) BMW

C) AUDI

I picked A), that will be my IQ being above the rest, and got an offer of a holiday. Clicked the back button and picked B) BMW and got offered a holiday so I clicked the back button and asked for an AUDI and got the offer of a holiday.

WEB2.0 holidays are a bit complicated involving lots of complicated stuff.

Hey! Yo! and stuff.

[J 3]

@Bollocks....

Reading the whole article would definitely help you...

[Anonymous Coward]

f**ck...

"F*ck the f*cking f*ckers who had the f*cking idea of f*cking enlarge the f*cking size of ye olde 'f*cking dictionary with f*cking neologisms."

See, plenty of meaning, very few words. Most of them aren´t really words *per se* they are "terms". "Cloud computing" would be two words, not one.

F*cktards.

Enough said.

[Anonymous Coward]

What bollocks!

What a load of hairy bonegrobblers(*)!

(*) only 24,999 more uses to go

[Col]

Ye elder gods...

That's it, I'm switching to lojban. English id clearly doomed.

[darkmooink]

Results of about 76,300,000 for "WEB 2.0"

how many of them are classed as "deployments in the media, social networking sites, and other hotbeds of linguistic creation" need to be less than 0.3333% for it to only have just hit 250,000 and that is only the web based ones, what about all the newspapers and mags?

ha what a joke

[Ad Fundum]

Hmmm

Guess there's not a lot going on at El Reg Towers this afternoon?

I mean - Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian constitute proper news but this ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Complete Shite

Of the "top 15" "words" 7 of them are in fact phrases.

Morons, the whole fucking lot of them.

[kevin biswas]

But but but.....

To be a real word in a real dictionary 'nall it must be capable of being actually defined

[Anonymous John]

Pinkfuckit/pingfukkit

Less than 1000 Google hits so far, but I'm working in it.

[Jonathan Richards 1]

Language Hegemony

Payack was on BBC Radio this morning, talking about how this means that English has become "the global language". I hope this doesn't align with the view that I have heard expressed, though not, to be fair, by him, that English is now so widespread that everyone should learn and use it. If we have a vote [1], I think we'll find that we settle on Chinese. And of course the French will be speaking French right up to the point that we make the planet uninhabitable by humans.

[1] Especially since, on the most recent showing, almost all UK speakers of English will not be motivated to get off their arses and put a cross on a ballot slip in any event. There's 50 million votes lost, right there.

[Alan Dougherty]

Hoon

'Accept a neologism "once it's clocked up 25,000 deployments in the media, social networking sites, and other hotbeds of linguistic creation"'

So when does 'Hoon' get a mention then? I think there are plenty of hoons out there that should be rewarded.

In the words of Brick Vader.. 'You fucking Hoon'.

[Anonymous Coward]

once upon a time

people did useful things with their time, now all we do is waste it.

So in the spirit ....

"Bulgarian Air-Bags" "Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags""Bulgarian Air-Bags"

would "Bulgarian-Aired-Bulgarian-Bags" be yet another neologism ?

boy this is fun, I can talk utter tosh, and it might make it into a "dick-shone-hairy" somewhere.

there's a few more "Bulgarian Air-Bags" mate , so it's well on it's way to being a "neologism"

just think about the unnecessary CO2 released into the atomsphere , serving up the tripe that I've just written. Al Gore would be pleased.

[Col]

another 2phemism

2phemism (n): a bollockstastic word invented for use on or by teh intarwebs which pwns a pre-existing word or phrase in the vernacular of the blognoscenti to the extent that it replaces a perfectly cromulent existing word.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish..

I wish people who publish this nonsense would read public blog comments. These psuedo linqui-tards are in serious need of an ego check if they think that the rest of us are buying this crap. Fail.

[Martin Greenaway]

How do retards like this get publicity?

This guy got coverage on the front page of CNN, on Newsnight, and on BBC this morning. Irrespective of the irony of claiming to be a linguistic reference whilst counting "web 2.0", "jai ho" and "carbon neutral" as WORDS, and ignoring their unwillingness to publish the exact method for inducting new terms, it gets plastered all over the media.

I really wish I knew his secret, so that I could use it to publicise worthwhile causes. In the meantime, I can't get an article on Wikipedia without independent coverage that doesn't come from a primary source, i.e., people who know what the fuck they are talking about.

[GrantB]

@Alan Dougherty Hoon

Er, Hoon is in the dictionary, at least in the New Zealand / Australian English dictionaries (see

http://www.reference.com/search?q=Hoon). There are plenty of other words in various dialects of English, which are valid English in regional contexts but not accepted world-wide.

I don't get the most of the complaints. Words come & go; if they are useful they are retained. Also, if you open your crusty old Oxford English dictionary you will find 'English words' like 'de jour' in there; it has always been acceptable to import words wholesale from other languages, and to have multiple part words. Admittedly I can't think of any old words that used numbers as well, but change is not always bad. Trying to express the new wave of social/interactive websites 'Web 2.0' will do me better than a clunky description.

I would rather than English keeps get bastardized with new imports like 'Web 2.0' or by the many terms coined by The Reg, than trying to force 'proper' English like some of the French/German attempts to stop English words creeping in.

[Loki 1]

Newspeak

We need newspeak. Double pus good!

[Greg J Preece]

Eh?

How can a *two word* bunch of marketing shite made up by a man that wanted to sell more books be considered a word anyway?

[SuperTim]

@J 3... Errr. I did,

Which is why i questioned the whole cloud computing thing being around before Web2.0, which i dont think was.

Never mind the whole thing being bollox anyway.

[Huw Davies]

@Loki 1

Double pus?

I'd see a doctor if I was you...

[Luke 2]

TWATDANGLE???

Surely the real question should be when will our beloved Twatdangle be added to this list??

Maybe it will be word 1,696,969?

Paris because... well no reason needed

[tiggertaebo]

who pays this guys wages?

you'd think a linguist (cunning or otherwise) would know the difference between a "word" and a "phrase"

*sigh*

the phrase Web 2.0 already makes me want to go on a mission to re-educate people with a taser - now I also feel the need to leave a time capsule apologising to future civilisations and to try and convince them that we weren't all feckless morons.

Mine's the one with the one with the Texas PD - issue taser in the pocket.

[Anonymous Coward]

So,,,,

Is 'Git Wizard' a word..... you just know who it means....

[Nostromo]

Lazy journos at El Reg get pwned shock...

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=972

[Sarah Bee]

Re: Lazy journos at El Reg get pwned shock...

Ahem.

"And before you lot start protesting at Global Language Monitor's millionth word count, we're fully aware that linguists of weight have dismissed the whole thing as a load of old cobblers."

What we do need a new word or phrase for is the act of allowing a comment through so as to provoke a hail of RTFA derision and suchlike from the other commentards. To thrungle? To collosseum?

[TeeCee]

I don't understand.

Exactly how many words for "bollocks" do they think we need in the sodding language anyway?

[whitespacephil]

A puppy for everyone in 280 years?

I don't recall Obama promising a puppy for everyone in 280 years. Did I miss something or is my maths rubbish?

[Col]

Re Sarah B

To trollbait. You seem to be a past master. Sorry, mistress.

...hmm...sorry mistress...

[Dave Bell]

Try counting

If a word needs 25,000 uses, and Google shows over 5,000,000 hits, it;s not just the n00bs who will wonder how this was worked out.

[Sarah Bee]

Re: Re Sarah B

I never stoop to trollbait. I merely dispense mob justice by proxy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sara

... but I thought "moderatrix" was already in popular use?

As in, "I'll just moderatrix this and see what the response is."

[Lost in India]

@Sooty

From the department of the bloody obvious. English has nicked from hindi, as from every other language you have come in contact with (as we all do). From avatar, bandana, bangle, chit, cot, bungalow to sentry, shampoo, thug and toddy.

If you should purge all words not from "Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Danes, Norse and closely related kindred peoples" you would get a very short dictionary indeed. Oh..they are all Indo-European languages? Ok, let’s stick to grunts then.

The Paris connection? Kama Sutra obviously.

[jake]

@Sarah

"What we do need a new word or phrase for is the act of allowing a comment through so as to provoke a hail of RTFA derision and suchlike from the other commentards. To thrungle? To collosseum?"

In this context, the obvious would be "to nostromo" ... ICBW ;-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Total ballcocks

There's nothing "official" about it! No dictionary, manual, quasi-governmental body, dubious 'committee' or even anonymous bureaucrat has the authority to declare what is and what is not an English word. That privilege belongs solely to native speakers of the language, and that includes me and, most likely, you.

[Anonymous Coward]

More new words desperately needed

Sounds like a ploy to sell updated dictionaries to me. So here's a few to help 'em along.

Computter - Antiquated PC used to knock golf balls through holes in the floor

Purrrinter - Peripheral device used as a resting place by cats

Cereal Sniper - Person who knocks boxes from the shelves in supermarkets

Java the Hutt - Lead developer who insists on using 12 lines of code instead of 5 (in a different language)

Acadaemic - Person who beleives they know best but rarely do

Maniac Miner - DB admin who's been around since the early 80's

Frankingstein - Ugly dude who works in the post room

Imparsonator - Regular person who dresses like the clergy for reasons unknown but may involve young boys

I could go on but its friday and nearly home time too :)

[Anonymous Coward]

What does Tony 2.0'Reilly have to say?

What does Tony 2.0'Reilly have to say about this? Web2.0®© is his trademark after all, so you can't even say its a phrase.

[Damien Thorn]

1m +1

pwnd.

Paris - words dont matter to her, actions speak louder than words.

[Witty username]

Hoon

Hoon, or Hooning, is also a accepted term for going out for a, ahem, spirited drive in/on your prefered form of transport (car/bike etc).

well, it is on Pistonheads anyway