According to the Global Language Monitor, the English language this week crossed a threshold as the "one millionth word" entered the lexicon. That word? "Web 2.0."
Global Language Monitor has a methodology by which it measures "new" words entering into English. Though "Web 2.0" has been around for years, GLM's method of counting requires "a minimum of 25,000 citations with the necessary breadth of geographic distribution and depth of citations."
"Web 2.0" met that test this week, as did "n00b" (word 999,998). Both words passed into mainstream usage today, according to GLM. Also on the listed of official new words this week: slumdog, cloud computing, Octomom (seriously, Octomom), sexting, defriend, and recessionista.
The very precision of the "one million word" claim is patent nonsense, of course, depending entirely on how you count words, what's excluded, and what the criteria is for something going "mainstream." GLM does not count, for instance, "the 600,000 species of mold" as separate words, nor do "the tens millions of lesser known chemical substances" make the list.
Stung by criticism from linguists, GLM's FAQ includes the question, "A number of linguists disagree with the Million Word March. Why?" And, in case the answer to that one doesn't clear things up, there's a second question: "Every so often, we hear arguments about the insurmountable obstacles in the path of estimating the number of words in the English Language. How do you answer these arguments?"
So, even if we English speakers are saddled with terms like "Web 2.0," "Octomom," and "Brangelina," we still have the privilege of working with one of the most supple languages in the world.
The answer to both questions is that estimates are used in everything from astronomy (how many stars are there?) to climatology (how much carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere?); language should be able to use the same techniques.
Which is all true, of course, but the cautious language of approximation and guesswork is totally absent from the announcement. "As expected, English crossed the 1,000,000 word threshold on June 10, 2009 at 10:22 am GMT," said Paul JJ Payack, president and chief word analyst of the Global Language Monitor. One is reminded of history's repeated prognostications about the year, month, and hour of the world's end.
But the larger point, one that goes far beyond the Million Word March, is that the vibrancy of English, which began in the late 16th century, continues undiminshed. The language has seen an explosion of words ever since the "new learning" of the Renaissance imported thousands of Greek and Latin terms into English, and a massive stock of French words still lingers in the language thanks to the Norman Conquest.
So today's international linguistic diversity is nothing new for the language. Many of the most recent words are American rather than from the UK, while others are Indian ("slumdog" and "Jai Ho!" were just behind "Web 2.0"). By some measures, English now has more words than any other in the world.
Simon Winchester, who wrote a wonderful book about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary and the mad, American, penis-slashing Civil War vet who made such a tremendous contribution to the work, celebrated English diversity this week in a fine Telegraph essay.
"I just cannot imagine any other language offering such opportunities for gaiety and fun," he said. "Reading recently that both the Germans and the Chinese have cracked down on the names people are allowed to have, and knowing that the French and the Italians still have gloom-laden academies to protect the so-called purity of their languages, strips out all the amusement and joy that is so very apparent in the tongue we speak so happily. I feel for them, poor deprived purists."
So, even if we English speakers are saddled with terms like "Web 2.0," "Octomom," and "Brangelina," we still have the privilege of working with one of the most supple languages in the world. Want to write entirely in English but adopt a Latinate vocabulary? You can. An Anglo-Saxon vocabulary? You can. French? Mais oui. An Indian vocabulary? We're getting there—and have been ever since "pyjamas" and "mulligatawny" entered the language.
So here's to English in all its crazed, orthographically challenged, multinational glory; may it live long and prosper, like some open source wiki run amok across the earth.