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.

Words Of The Year 2008

We all know that business channels declare the Businessman of the Year, certain media houses announce the Indian of the Year and so on, but do you know that publishers of dictionaries like the Oxford American Dictionary, Merriam Webster Dictionary and certain language societies like the American Dialect Society, and organizations who monitor trends in the English language like Global Language Monitor announce the Word Of The Year (WOTY), each year?

So which word has made it to be the WOTY 2008?

Have a look:
The New Oxford American Dictionary has announced their Oxford WOTY 2008: …….
Oh, but don’t we generally announce the nominations first?
So here you go…
There are many nominations, I would like to list two which did not make it to the final list though, which I liked:
staycation – a vacation taken at or near one’s home, taking day trips, and such other activities
tweet – a short message sent via the Twitter service, using a cellphone or other mobile device.
The finalists from among the nominations for the Oxford WOTY 2008 are:
frugalista – person who leads a frugal lifestyle, but stays fashionable and healthy by swapping clothes, buying second-hand, growing own produce,
moofer – a mobile out of office worker – ie. someone who works away from a fixed workplace, via Blackberry/laptop/wi-fi etc. (also verbal noun, moofing)
If you want to find out more about moofing, visit this website
topless meeting – Hey it is not what you thought! It is a meeting in which the participants are barred from using their laptops, Blackberries, cellphones, etc.
toxic debt – mainly sub-prime debts that are now proving so disastrous to banks. They were parceled up and sent around the global financial system like toxic waste, hence the allusion.
hypermiling - coined in 2004 by Wayne Gerdes, who runs this web site.

Hypermiling or to hypermile, is to attempt to maximize gas mileage by making fuel-conserving adjustments to one’s car and one’s driving techniques. Rather than aiming for good mileage or even great mileage, hypermilers seek to push their gas tanks to the limit and achieve hypermileage, exceeding EPA ratings for miles per gallon.

Oxford Word of the Year 2008: Hypermiling
Many of the methods followed by hypermilers are basic common sense—drive the speed limit, avoid hills and stop-and-go traffic, maintain proper tire pressure, don’t let your car idle, get rid of excess cargo—but others practiced by some devotees may seem slightly eccentric:
• driving without shoes (to increase the foot’s sensitivity on the pedals)
• parking so that you don’t have to back up to exit the space
• “ridge-riding” or driving with your tires lined up with the white line at the edge of the road to avoid driving through water-filled ruts in the road when it’s raining
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger advocates the practice, referring to it as EcoDriving.
I like the word coined by Arnold though!

The Merriam Webster Dictionary WOTY 2008
1. bailout
2. vet
3. socialism
4. maverick
5. bipartisan
6. trepidation
7. precipice
8. rogue
9. misogyny
10. turmoil

And the winner of the Merriam Webster Dictionary WOTY 2008 is :
1. bailout (noun)- a rescue from financial distress

The American Dialect Society’s WOTY 2008

ADS WORD OF THE YEAR WINNER: bailout, the rescue by the government of companies on the brink of failure, including large players in the banking industry.
Other nominees for the ADS word of the year:
Barack Obama: Both names as combining forms in a large number of new words. A combining form is a word or part of a word that can be used as the root or basis of other words.
lipstick on a pig: An adornment of something that can't be made pretty.
change: Not so much a buzzword as political wallpaper, background noise, and ambient energy rolled into one. The idea of discarding old ideas and methods seemed to underlie everything said by national political candidates.
shovel-ready: Used to describe infrastructure projects that can be started quickly when funds become available
game-changer: In business and politics, something that alters the nature of a marketplace, relationship, or campaign. From sports ‘something that changes a match or contest.’


Global Language Monitor

The Global Language Monitor has been selecting the Top Ten Words of the Year since 2000. To select these words and phrases it uses a statistical analysis of language usage in the worldwide print and electronic media, on the Internet and throughout the Blogosphere.

Global Language Monitor announced the Top 10 words and phrases for 2008 as follows:

The Top Ten Words of 2008 announced by Global Language Monitor
1. Change – The top political buzzword of the 2008 US Presidential campaign.
2. Bailout – Would have been higher but was not in the media until Mid-September.
3. Obamamania – Describing the worldwide reaction to Barack Obama’s campaign and subsequent victory in the US presidential race.
4. Greenwashing – Repositioning a product to stress its Earth-friendly attributes.
5. Surge – Military and political strategy often cited as reducing violence in Iraq.
6. Derivative – Exotic financial instruments used to cleverly package junk-grade debt.
7. Subprime – Mortgages that were packaged as derivatives.
8. Foreclosure – The end-result of the sub-prime mess.
9. Phelpsian: New word coined to describe the Phelpsian Pheat of winning eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics.
10. Chinglish – The often amusing Chinese/English language hybrid that Beijing tried to stamp out before the Olympics began.

The Top Ten Phrases of 2008 announced by Global Language Monitor
1. Financial Tsunami – Worldwide financial meltdown ultimately stemming from derivatives used to package subprime mortgages.
2. Global Warming – The No. 2 buzzword of the US Presidential Campaign.
3. Yes We Can — Yes, indeed, he could and he did.
4. Lame Duck – What happens when you wait 2 ½ months from election to inauguration.
5. Working Class Whites – Apparently, working Class Whites is used as a code word for whites who are working class.
6. “It is, what it is” – On everyone’s lips this year meaning ‘unfortunately, those are the facts’.
7. Lip Synching: The fate of Lin Miaoke, the little girl who didn’t sing the song the whole world sings in the Olympics opening ceremony.
8. Price of oil – Oil was supposed to topping out about now at $200/barrel.
9. Super Tuesday – When the race for the Democratic nomination was supposed to be decided.
10. Suddenness Happens – Top Chinglish Phrase from the Beijing Olympics.

Interesting, isnt it?
Words of the Year are not necessarily new words introduced in that year. Just a reflection of the times we have been through. But dont you think that the words largely reflected incidents in the US, mostly the elections held there? Do you think of any words that could have been nominated or actually deserved the WOTY 2008? Which word do you think reflects the scene in India in 2008? Do write in your comments!