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'Web 2.0' is English's Millionth Word

A new word emerges every 98 minutes

By Ambreen Ali, Newser User

Posted Jun 10, 2009 3:48 PM CDT

(Newser) – The millionth word to enter the English lexicon is pure geek-speak, the Telegraph reports: Web 2.0 was entered this morning by Global Language Monitor, which recognizes words once they’ve appeared 25,000 times in the media, blogs, and social websites. The linguistic cataloger estimates that a new word is generated every 98 minutes.

Jai ho—Hindi for “may you be victorious”—came just one word too early. Gaming term n00b, financial tsunami, and octomom were also recently added. “Some 400 years after the death of the Bard, the words and phrases were coined far from Stratford-upon-Avon, emerging instead from Silicon Valley, India, China and Poland,” says a word analyst.

[Images (2)]

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Web 2.0 has been declared the millionth word to be added to the English language. (Shutter stock)

Web 2.0 has been declared the millionth word to be added to the English language. (Flickr)

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The average person's vocabulary is fewer than 14,000 words out of the million that are available.
- Paul JJ Payack, chief word analyst
for the Global Language Monitor

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'Web 2.0' is English's Millionth Word