As of this morning, the English language has one million words or phrases, a popular language site claims. But it may be a while before the phrase 'Web 2.0' hits the official Scrabble dictionary.
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English language gets its one millionth word, website says
By Matthew Shaer | 06.10.09
The English language, which has more words than any other language in the history of the world, today added its one millionth word or phrase, according to the site Global Language Monitor. Several phrases were in the running, including “Jai Ho,” “Slumdog,” (terms popularized by the Oscar-winning movie “Slumdog Millionaire) and “N00b,” a derogatory name for an amateur video-game player.
But the winner was “Web 2.0,” a phrase usually applied to social networking sites such as Facebook, and Twitter. (The Global Language Monitor, somewhat stiffly, calls “[Web 2.0] a technical term meaning the next generation of World Wide Web products and services. It has crossed from technical jargon into far wider circulation in the last six months.”) Since 2008, the Global Language Monitor, which is based in Texas, has been counting down its “Million Word March.”
According to the site, a new English word or phrase is created about every 98 minutes, for an average of 14.7 per day. The proliferation of blogs and social networks has no doubt increased the frequency of new words – the site UrbanDictionary.com, for instance, has become a barometer of web slang.
The Global Language Monitor uses a proprietary algorithm, called the Predictive Quantities Indicator, to scan “global print and electronic media, on the Internet, throughout the Blogosphere, in social media as well as accessing proprietary databases (Factiva, Lexis-Nexis, etc.),” reads a FAQ posted on the Global Language Monitor.
But many journalists and linguists have criticized the algorithm’s rubric. “By what authority does the Global Language Monitor say a new coinage is a genuine new word?” The Economist asked last year:
None. Some countries, such as France and Spain, have academies that claim the right to regulate their national languages, and to repel invasive terms, usually from English. Neither England nor the United States attempts such an exercise in futility. English is a mongrel language that keeps its vitality by absorbing new words, uses and expressions. It promiscuously plunders other languages and delights in neologisms. It is the language of free traders and inventive entrepreneurs such as the staff of the Global Language Monitor.
In case you were wondering – and I’m picking randomly here – word number 999,989 was “Defriend,” defined as “Social networking terminology for cutting the connection with a formal friend.”
What about 999,988?
“Chengguan,” defined as “Urban management officers, a cross between mayors, sheriff, and city managers.”
On the other side of one million, phrase 1,000,001 is “Financial Tsunami,” appropriate enough for these rocky economic times.
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2. Chris | 06.10.09
“Noob” would be a good choice in my opninon as it is a widely known phrase which defines an idea that no other word describes. However, defining factual english words by using some random person’s slang which includes a word which already exists, two numbers in it, and a decimal point from a social networking site facebook or bebo is something that would sprout from only the brain of an immature person with nothing better to do.
3. Adam | 06.10.09
“The Dutch language union estimates there are about 2 - 5 million words in the dutch language”
Haha - that sounds about as accurate an estimate as “1 million english words”. What, did they lose count at 2 million and figure they were almost half way there? Why not say 3.5 million, plus or minus 1.5 million.
laughable.
5. Polack self-taught | 06.11.09
It’s not how many words language contains, it’s how many normal bread eater uses that counts. And that is nothing to brag about in the US sorry to say.
6. ptoro | 06.11.09
I’m glad someone’s keeping track, but why clump words along with phrases? I’m sure there are well over 1 million phrases in the English language. I would like to know just how many official words there really is without the help of some over-invented algorithm. Web 2.0 should Probably be in the “1 millionth phrase” category, and not be counted as a word, which it isn’t. The writer of this article should rewrite the title and call it “The one millionth word is actually a phrase!”.
7. J Shmoe | 06.11.09
Apparently there was an error in the accounting; they forgot that they removed the word freedom from the english lexicon. Anyone who uses it will be deemed a tourist (sp?) and will be held without due process or review by some high priest joker in a black robe posing as god in a courthouse for kangaroos.
8. Rob M | 06.11.09
You can’t apply rules to the English language. We drive on parkways, park on driveways. We spell bare like bear which is a b before ear which should be beer but it’s not. The i before e except after c except in weigh and neighbor. Rules? I don’t think so. Making stuff up is what we do. These are only a few Ex-amples. Ohmzayin? Frill doh.
9. jalabi | 06.11.09
“Jai ho” is not A word, it’s TWO words. It’s a Tamil phrase that means, “Victory shall be yours”. So it shouldn’t even have been in the running for the site’s Million Word March. Not only that, but I don’t think it is even as widely used in English vernacular as its companion “slumdog” might have been.
And I agree: calling “Web 2.0″ a word was a poor choice as well.
10. Looney | 06.11.09
The reason that phrases are included in the word list is because of cases such as “hot dog,” which are written as two words, but whose meanings have nothing to do with the meaning of the component words. That said, the word list is clearly including too much–”financial tsunami” is not such a case, but rather a simple application of metaphor.
11. Steve | 06.11.09
Such noise about nothing… I agree with the majority of people here that point out… web 2.0 is a phrase… not a word.
why did it take so long to march to 1 million?
I am guessing we could get to 3 or 4 million easy by combining other popular phrases… I am guessing the America Idol would be counted as a word.
What about the Dharma Initiative… so many opportunities!
12. creep | 06.11.09
Nonsense,
If we were to count all two word combinations in the English language as words themselves, then we would have an astronomical number of words! For example, just a very basic probability equation which allows you to determine how many two-word phrases could be created from our current “1,000,000″ words gives us nearly 500 billion possibilities (of course, not all two-word combinations will create a literate two-word phrase, but you can see how ridiculous this 1,000,000 word claim really is when you include two-word phrases!) Clearly there must not be enough going on in the world to cover, they had to include this garbage.
13. Jacobs | 06.12.09
“Financial Tsunami” is clearly a metaphor which has become cliche. To add someone’s use of figurative language as a word in a dictionary of sorts reminds me of Orwell’s 1984.
Remember when “weapons of mass destruction” became the only way people phrased and therefore thought about nuclear weapons, later abbreviated to WMD to further limit our ability to phrase and think about the issue at hand with our own creative use of language?
14. John L. Brown | 06.14.09
I seriously doubt that the word, web 2.0, constitutes, with absolute certainty the millionth word in the English language. Language usage is easily changed and adaptable, and subject to constant revision. The ability to track and determine which words are codified within established criteria of language usage must, of necessity, evaluate an organic process, not entirely amenable to exact analysis. Moreover, many words are interchangeable; having the same definitional meaning. As such, the standard by which to determine a particular word as constituting, as stated, the millionth word in the English language is based upon a standard that ignores obvious redundancy. I would suggest that this standard is incomplete, somewhat arbitrary, and not consistent with any well defined, or scientific method of exactitude. In point of fact, it is impossible to confidently ascertain the exact time by which a particular word enters established language usage. No doubt, a particular agency; Global Language Monitor, or any such entity, as judge by an algorithmic process, can attempt to determine the arithmetic position of a particular word. Yet such algorithms, and their results do not constitute established scientific methodologies. Therefore, their conclusions, “English language gets its one millionth word,” is inherently flawed.
15. Rohit | 07.10.09
This is all gimmick to promote English, otherwise other languages like Chinese, Hindi, Arabic have far more number of words than English. They way in which words are created in English language if we also applied the same to other languages there will be a far more number of words in those languages.
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1. Ortwin S. | 06.10.09
‘The English language, which has more words than any other language in the history of the world.’
With only one million words??? You have been so terrible misinformed.
And ‘Financial’ and ‘Tsunami’ are two very old words! How do those people count?
The Dutch language union estimates there are about 2 - 5 million words in the dutch language, wich is only spoken by 22 million people worldwide.
greetings from the Netherlands