The Global Language Monitor recently announced that ‘Web 2.0’ is the millionth English word or phrase to be added to the English language. Web 2.0 is a technical term referring to the second generation of World Wide Web products and services.
For a word to be eligible to be included in the English language it must meet the criteria of a minimum of 25,000 citations with the necessary breadth of geographic distribution and depth of citations. What this means is that any word that has gained sufficiently wide usage can be accepted into the English language. This includes hybrids with other languages and computer jargon.
In the race for the millionth word, Web 2.0 beat other contenders such as ‘Jai Ho’, ‘N00b’ and ‘Slumdog’. Jai Ho - the Hindu phrase signifying the joy of victory or accomplishment and Slumdog – referring to those residing in the slums of India are terms that became popular through the massively award winning movie ‘Slumdog Millionaire’.
Other words that have been recently added to the English language include ‘Slow Food’ – the opposite of fast food; ‘octomom’ – the media phenomenon relating to the travails of the mother of the octuplets; ‘Sexting’ - sending email (or text messages) with sexual content; ‘Defriend’ – social networking terminology for cutting the connection with a formal friend and ‘Financial Tsunami’ - the global financial restructuring that seemingly swept out of nowhere, wiping out trillions of dollars of assets, in a matter of months.
