A million words!

With the birth of Astha Arora, India’s population touched the one billion mark on 11th May 2000.
Web 2.0 is the millionth word in the English language according to Global Language Monitor

Newspapers and websites were agog with speculation about which word would be the millionth word that GLM would announce earlier this month. Could it be Jai Ho? Could it be slumdog? Or would it be n00b? The suspense was building each day, as reports about the possible millionth word were being published daily . While many Indians rooted for ‘Jai Ho’ for the coveted millionth word in English, some amongst us said, but Jai Ho are two words, not one! Well some even said “But ‘Jai Ho’ is a song!”. Which, of course it is!

Whether it is two words, a song or whatever - I personally preferred “Jai Ho” to "slumdog"! I had been thinking of posting my views at that time, but somehow couldn’t pull of a meaningful string of thoughts – an important condition for a post on the ArTicKles blog. Not enough whatnonsanz to be specific. (One day it will be the 2 millionth word, i hope)

Now that Web 2.0 has been dropped upon us as the millionth word, we have more to ponder and debate. For instance, what exactly is a word? We never needed to ask that question “what exactly is a child?” when young Astha Arora was born. It took a million words in English before we could ask "what exactly is a word" though! My first reaction upon reading the much-awaited announcement was, “Web Two Point Zero? It’s not a word!”

But if it is the millionth word, as we are told, well, it’s got to be a word! It couldn’t be the millionth word without being a word, certainly! “It is an alpha-numeric term” ,one may say. But then so is n00b – which is “n zero zero b”, a combination of letters and numerics, meaning a newcomer in the online gaming community, incidentally.

While there have been several reports in the press expressing the choice to be genuine and apt, Web 2.0 – its arrival ushering in new experiences for the netizens, the comments and views expressed by various writers seem to indicate otherwise. Some have even raised the question that if terms like “financial tsunami” and “wardrobe malfunction”, (which are in reality two words or if you insist, a phrase), have been included in the count to the millionth word. So can we really say we have the millionth word after all?

Pssst - Btw, I suppose “chemical locha” of Munnabhai fame is included already!

Well if GLM has opened its doors wide to welcome all kinds of words, phrases, songs etc, I would suggest them to include “Pappu cant dance sala”. Well, my reasoning is that it is better a word than a song!

So what happened to Jai Ho and Slumdog?

The 999,997th word was Slumdog, the 999,998th was the Hindi salutation Jai Ho, the 999,999th word was N00b, from the internet meaning a new member of an online gaming community, while the 1,000,001st was “financial tsunami”.

Which brings us to the question what constitutes a word for the GLM?

The Global Language Monitor accepts as a word any coinage that has gained sufficiently wide usage: this includes hybrid words in Chinglish (Chinese English), Hinglish (Hindi English), Spanglish (Spanish English), Hollywords (terms created by the film industry), including slang, word-marriages with other languages and the thousands of new terms spawned by the internet. computer jargon and words forged by the internet. The word does not have to be in any dictionary! In fact, the latest Oxford English Dictionary has only about 616,500 word forms.

And just how does GLM decide which word gets entered into their list of words?

Each contender is analysed according to depth (number of citations) and breadth (geographic extent of word usage), as well as the number of times a word has appeared in the global print and electronic media, the Internet, blogs, and social media such as Twitter and YouTube. Words need a minimum of 25,000 citations to qualify.

If you need to know more click here for GLM’s FAQ.
Now we know!
Could this just be a popularity gimmick for GLM and the Technology geeks?

You may also notice how the millionth word has been described by the GLM:
“Web 2.0 - the next generation of web products and services, coming soon to a browser near you”. That sounds more like an ad to me! Perhaps it is. I wonder whether they got the cue from our Regional Transport Office in Mumbai, who sell privileged registration numbers like 1111, 9999, 3000 and of course, 786 to people with moneybags to part with!

It was nice fun, anyway. Considering my love for new words. Jai Ho!

Blogger's Postscript:
Oh, and just in case you haven’t read ( I know you have! ) my article on the subject of new words in English in the TOI on 16th June 09, here’s the link.

At the Blogscars 2009

Long post alert!
(I couldn’t make it short, because I ran out of ideas)

Just as the Oscars night is the much-awaited event looked forward to by the glitterati, the Blogscars, as Indian Home Maker calls it, is its parallel in the blogosphere, looked forward to by the blogeratti. The most phenomenal blogger, Indian Home Maker (IHM) had hosted this event recently in her blog. You may read it here.

Ever since I have been blogging, it has been a delight when fellow-bloggers have pitched in time and again with their encouraging words of praise (which may have led me to come so far as 65+ posts and 15000 hits). Though I personally don’t believe in quantitative targets and do accord greater importance to quality of content, I also do believe that for a small-time, unknown writer like me, reaching out to hundreds or perhaps thousands was a dream. Why else would one write if not to share one’s thoughts or ideas?

"It is with great pleasure that I announce that IHM has given me The Versatile Blogger award! Thank you, IHM! I would fail in my duty (to make it sound like a speech), if I would not mention here that IHM has painfully listed out the bloggers who have received this award along with the reasons – the posts which have got the award their way! The effort you have put in is laudable, IHM! Take a bow! It also gave us an opportunity to read your handpicked blogposts from amongst us."



For me, it has been for this post, “Daughters are forever”.
- A post, which will always remain closest to my heart!

When IHM tagged me to do a post listing five things that changed me when I became a father, I wondered what to write! So when I mentioned this to my daughter, she immediately said, “You have already written about this, haven’t you?” So IHM, I couldn’t think past this post, which is actually about how my life changed with the arrival of my daughter in my life. So I take it as having done it already, and hope that I wouldn't get any punishment for not doing my asignment(homework)!

My regular readers may have noted the rather unusual manner in which I do announce my awards. andThis is when I got the Blog of the day award from Bill Austin.

And this post, when Indyeah gave me this Kreativ Blogger Award

And this is when Krishnan and Sahaja had given me the Proximidade and Butterfly awards. I had even posted a limerick for each of the award recipients that I conferred it to in turn. Read this post here.

The blogging journey has proved to me that there are several talented writers who have been showing their creativity through their designs, thoughts, words and innovative posts. So if they have been awarded by their fellow-bloggers, it has been really a well-deserved recognition of their contribution to the blogosphere. Some call it Blogiverse (blog + universe). Or should I just say Blog-Samaj as Hitchwriter aka Dhirenbhai says in his comments?

Before I get to the awarding ceremony, let me share with you the several new words that are either being used or have the potential to be used extensively with the advent of blogs. The word blog, as you know is already a crafty shortened version of the words web log. I stumbled upon several such words derived from the word blog, chiefly combination words. The ones that immediately caught my attention are listed below:

Blogaholic – someone who’s life subsists on online blogs

Blogarrhea - An ailment afflicting bloggers. Excessive and frequent evacuation of blog postings, runny ones with little substance, usually indicating emotional distress or disorder.

Blogorrhea - A blog characterized by excessive commenting on irrelevant facts. We say that the blogger suffers from uncontrollable verbal discharge or blogorrhea.

Bloggebrity – n. A person who has become famous through blogging.

Blogworthy – When something happens in your life that is worth mentioning in your blog

Blogalization - Increase in global communication and awareness through the activities of Internet blogging. A coinage, not yet very popular term in English but well spread in French and German

Blogarazzi - Plural noun: bloggers who flock to a news story or event the way paparazzi flock to celebrities.

Bloganova –A variation of "Casanova", referring to a man who is amorously attentive to women, by means of a blog - A Casanova operating through blogs!

Blogathon - A competition between two friends on myspace. The two, three, twelve or more friends each write a blog and compeat to see who gets the most blog views, comments and kudos. The person with the most views, comments, kudos etc. wins the blogathon, thus having the best blog. People who participate in blogathons are usually sad, middle-aged men who live with their mothers and teenage girls trying to prove their popularity.

Bloggerazzi – An individual that waits for authors of popular blogs to post new enteries so that they can be the first to leave a comment.

Bloggerssistic - When someone has a blog that they won't stop talking about.
A: "Have you read my blog yet?"
"You should read my blog."
"Well, if you read my blog, you would already know that."
"I am SO posting this picture on my blog."
B: "Shut up! You are so bloggerssisstic."

Blogiot - Somebody who comes off as an idiot in their blog.

Blogistan - The Blogiverse. The collective term for all webloggers, or "bloggers." (Dhiren – I still love your Blog-Samaj)

Blogiversary - The yearly anniversary of someones web-log (blog)

Blogiarism - Blatant theft of blog contents and/or entries, to be added to any other blog, site or publication without notating the origin or author and without their expressed consent.

Blogopreneur - One who generates income via advertising on their blog

Blogstipation – Inability to think what to blog about!

When I tried to coin some new words based on 'blog', I google-searched the web to see if they were already existing, that is when I found so many of them listed in the Urban Dictionary website . You may scroll down the list on the left hand side to explore many more.

I would like to give this award to the following well-deserved bloggers:



Vinod Sharma – for successfully posting humorous political posts besides his usually brilliant commentaries on the state of politics and the nation, which lend the topic an expanse of oceanic dimensions.

Sakhi – for being able to find a wide variety of subjects for her short stories. One could almost play a game about which subject she would take up next and lose it altogether! I would have missed out on her photography blog if I hadn’t been following her on Twitter!

Nita – for her untiring energy to delve into facts and figures, views and counterviews, practices and observations to cover subjects that our minds had somehow never thought of visiting.

Sahaja – for picking up her camera and letting us see the world through her eyes, besides continuing her everlasting smiles posts about her experiences in her blog.

Mavin – for sharing his thoughts about India and the challenges of personal finances that we face each day, but do not spend enough time to study analytically,

Priyank – for enjoying what he does and posting those breathtaking pictures which capture nature and its freshness – they arrive fresh on your blogspots, Priyank. Makes me wonder - is it Pure Oxygen or Ozone, that you load it with?

IHM – for bringing up subjects, which some of us would rather not want to think about. And deal with them with the sensitivity and truthfulness that make us want to agree, to change the world and get up and act!

Indyeah – for coming up bolder than ever with her opinion. For rooting for it and for letting us know her passion to be teaching little ones and what it means to her.

Usha Pisharody – for her insightful posts and for being a committed teacher too!

Krishnan – for finding some thoughtful gems of tidbits and trivia – especially about literature and books and for sharing all that he finds interesting on his blog.

Manju – for finding inspiring treasures in the heap of news, controversies, gossip and a trillion trivia.

Swaps - for being where he should be ready with his camera and finding some sights that we may have spent a lifetime to find and still may not have, and then sharing it for us all with some clever words or poetry to go down with.

Now, for some of my new finds you too get this award and also I am blogrolling you guys!

Hitchwriter – Dhiren – for being very humorous in his posts about his experiences. It gives me great pleasure to find more bloggers taking to humor, when subjects of intense debate and opinions generally command popularity and get the eyeballs.


Vishesh – for taking up the contest route and for choosing humor as the subject. You’re sure to enjoy this, just as all your readers are too!

Winnie the Poohi - for being innovative in the way you have conducted the interviews of fellow-bloggers. I had come across such a blog “Being-a-blogger”, which had interviewed hugely popular bloggers, but found it was defunct by the time I had discovered it!

To all those who have been commenting on my blog, my sincere thanks! To all fellow bloggers, I may not have posted comments on all your posts, but do be assured that I do make it a point to find time and have been coming over to reading them and enjoying them!

For someone who just wanted to post his write-ups on the net, I have come a long way! It is so nice to feel like we are one big blogging family here. Can't think of a new word for this great feeling, though. Thank you, all!