Grown Up Thinking

Congratulations “Web 2.0”, you are the English language’s one millionth word!

The Global Language Monitor has just deemed “Web 2.0” number 1,000,000 and says the English language contains more words than any other language on the planet, claiming about 14 words are added to English every day.

For those of you born last week, and a few of you before 1960, the term “Web 2.0” refers to the second, more social generation of the Internet. Then again, if you didn’t know that, you probably wouldn’t be on this site. Or maybe you’re here to learn!

GLM says words must make sense in at least 60 percent of the world to be official. While some language experts challenge the process and criteria for creating words, GLM uses computer models that check 5,000 dictionaries, publications and articles, as well as billions of Web sites, to see how frequently words are used. A word must make 25,000 appearances to be deemed legitimate. GLM says words up for consideration must make sense to different communities of people, not just one core demographic.

The five words leading up to the millionth prove how the English language evolves along with current social trends. This list includes: “Jai Ho!“, “slumdog”, “cloud computing”, “carbon neutral” and “n00b”.

We salute you, “Web 2.0”, and consider this a fitting honor for a phrase that has become definitive of our generation.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 12th, 2009 at 12:54 pm and is filed under New Media, social media, Technology, Trends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.