The million word in the english language

A US web monitoring firm has declared the millionth English word to be Web 2.0, a term for the latest generation of web products and services.

Matt Frei reports on English’s unique linguistic evolution and then spoke to Global Language Monitor’s Paul Payack who helped find this millionth English word.

Web 2.0 beats Jai Ho & N00b as 1,000,000th English Word

English passed the Million Word mark earlier today, June 10 at 10:22 am GMT

Word Number 1,000,001: Financial Tsunami
Austin, Texas June 10, 2009 – The Global Language Monitor today announced that Web 2.0 has bested Jai Ho, N00b and Slumdog as the 1,000,000th English word or phrase. added to the codex of fourteen hundred-year-old language. Web 2.0 is 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. Two terms from India, Jai Ho! and slumdog finished No. 2 and 4. Jai Ho! Is a Hindi exclamation signifying victory or accomplishment; Slumdog is an impolite term for children living in the slums. Just missing the top spot was n00b, a mixture of letters and numbers that is a derisive term for newcomer. It is also the only mainstream English word that contains within itself two numerals. Just missing the final five cut-off, was another technical term, cloud computing, meaning services that are delivered via the cloud. At its current rate, English generates about 14.7 words a day or one every 98 minutes.

These are the fifteen finalists for the one millionth English word, all of which have met the criteria of a minimum of 25,000 citations with the necessary breadth of geographic distribution, and depth of citations.

1,000,000: Web 2.0 – The next generation of web products and services, coming soon to a browser near you.
999,999: Jai Ho! – The Hindi phrase signifying the joy of victory, used as an exclamation, sometimes rendered as “It is accomplished”. Achieved English-language popularity through the multiple Academy Award Winning film, “Slumdog Millionaire”.
999,998: N00b — From the Gamer Community, a neophyte in playing a particular game; used as a disparaging term.
999,997: Slumdog – a formerly disparaging, now often endearing, comment upon those residing in the slums of India.
999,996: Cloud Computing – The ‘cloud’ has been technical jargon for the Internet for many years. It is now passing into more general usage.
999,995: Carbon Neutral — One of the many phrases relating to the effort to stem Climate Change.
999,994: Slow Food — Food other than the fast-food variety hopefully produced locally (locavores).
999,993: Octomom – The media phenomenon relating to the travails of the mother of the octuplets.
999,992: Greenwashing – Re-branding an old, often inferior, product as environmentally friendly.
999,991: Sexting – Sending email (or text messages) with sexual content.
999,990: Shovel Ready – Projects are ready to begin immediately upon the release of federal stimulus funds.
999,989: Defriend – Social networking terminology for cutting the connection with a formal friend.
999,988: Chengguan – Urban management officers, a cross between mayors, sheriff, and city managers.
999,987: Recessionista – Fashion conscious who use the global economic restructuring to their financial benefit.
999,986: Zombie Banks – Banks that would be dead if not for government intervention and cash infusion.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -
In addition, the 1,000,001^st word is Financial Tsunami – The global financial restructuring that seemingly swept out of nowhere, wiping out trillions of dollars of assets, in a matter of months.

Each word was analyzed to determine which depth (number of citations) and breadth (geographic extent of word usage), as well as number of appearances in the global print and electronic media, the Internet, the blogosphere, and social media (such as Twitter and YouTube). The Word with the highest PQI score was deemed the 1,000,000th English language word. The Predictive Quantities Indicator (PQI) is used to track and analyze word usage.
Global Language Monitor has been tracking English word creation since 2003. Once it identifies new words (or neologisms) it measures their extent and depth of usage with its PQI technology.

English Language Millionth Word Finalists Announced, including: alcopops, bangster, de-friend, n00b, quendy-trendy, slumdog, and wonderstar

English to Pass Millionth Word June 10 at 10:22 am GMT

Million Word March Now Stands at 999,824

Austin, Texas May 29, 2009 – The Global Language Monitor today announced the finalists for the Million Word March. The English Language will cross the 1,000,000 word threshold on June 10, 2009 at 10:22 am Stratford-Upon-Avon time.

“The Million Word milestone brings to notice the coming of age of English as the first, truly global Language”, said Paul JJ Payack, president and chief word analyst of the Global Language Monitor. “There are three major trends involving the English language today: 1) An explosion in word creation; English words are being added to the language at the rate of some 14.7 words a day; 2) a geographic explosion where some 1.53 billion people now speak English around the globe as a primary, auxiliary, or business language; and 3) English has become, in fact, the first truly global language.”

Due to the global extent of the English language, the Millionth Word is as likely to appear from India, China, or East L.A.as it is to emerge from Stratford-upon-Avon (Shakespeare’s home town). The final words and phrases under consideration are listed below. These words represent each of the categories of Global English that GLM tracks, Since English appears to be adding a new word every 98 minutes or about 14.7 words a day, the Global Language Monitor is selecting a representative sampling. You can follow the English Language WordClock counting down to the one millionth word at www.LanguageMonitor.com.

These words that are on the brink of entering the language as the finalists for the One Millionth English Word:

Australia: Alchopops – Sugary-flavored mixed drinks very much en vogue.

Chinglish: Chengguan – Urban management officers, a cross between mayors, sheriff, and city managers.

Economics: 1) Financial Tsunami – The global financial restructuring that seemingly swept out of nowhere, wiping out trillions of dollars of assets, in a matter of months. 2) Zombie Banks – Banks that would be dead if not for government intervention and cash infusion.

Entertainment: Jai Ho! — From the Hindi, “it is accomplished’ achieved English-language popularity through the multiple Academy Award Winner, “Slumdog Millionaire”.

Fashion: 1) Chiconomics – The ability to maintain one’s fashion sense (chicness) amidst the current financial crisis. 2) Recessionista – Fashion conscious who use the Global economic restructuring to their financial benefit; 3) Mobama – relating to the fashion-sense of the US First Lady, as in ‘that is quite mobamaish’.

Popular Culture: Octomom (the media phenomenon of the mother of the octuplets).

Green Living: 1) Green washing – Re-branding an old product as environmentally friendly. 2) E-vampire – Appliances and machines on standby-mode, which continually use electrical energy they ‘sleep’. 3) Slow food: — Food other than the fast-food variety hopefully produced locally (locavores).

Hinglish: Chuddies – Ladies’ underwear or panties.

Internet: 1) De-follow – No longer following the updates of someone on a social networking site. 2) De-friend – No longer following the updates of a friend on a social networking site; much harsher than de-following. 3) Web 2.0 – The next generation of web services.

Language: Toki Pona – The only language (constructed or natural) with a trademark.

Million Word March: MillionWordWord — Default entry if no other word qualifies.

Music: Wonderstar – as in Susan Boyle, an overnight sensation, exceeding all reasonable expectations.

Poland: Bangsters – A description of those responsible for ‘predatory’ lending practices, from a combination of the words banker and gangster.

Politically incorrect: 1) Slumdog – a formerly disparaging comments upon those residing in the slums of India; Seatmates of size – US airline euphemism for passengers who carry enough weight to require two seats.

Politics: 1) Carbon neutral — One of the many phrases relating to the effort to stem Climate Change. 2) Overseas Contingency Operations – The Obama re-branding of the Bush War on Terror.

Sports: Phelpsian – The singular accomplishments of Michael Phelps at the Beijing Olympics.

Spirituality: Renewalist – Movements that encompass renewal of the spirit; also call ‘Spirit-filled’ movements.

Technology: 1) Cloud Computing – The ‘cloud’ has been technical jargon for the Internet for many years. It is now passing into more general usage. 2) N00b — From the Gamer Community; a neophyte in playing a particular game; used as a disparaging term. 3) Sexting – Sending email (or text messages) with sexual content.

YouthSpeak: Quendy-Trendy — British youth speak for hip or up-to-date.

Extra Credit:

French word with least chance of entering English Language: le courriel for E-Mail.

Most recognized English-language word on the planet: O.K.

Each word is being analyzed to determine which is attaining the greatest depth (number of citations) and breadth (geographic extent of word usage), as well as number appearances in the global print and electronic media, the Internet, the blogosphere, and social media (such as Twitter and YouTube). The Word with the highest PQI score will be deemed the 1,000,000th English language word. The Predictive Quantities Indicator (PQI) is used to track and analyze word usage.

Global Language Monitor has been tracking English word creation since 2003. Once it identifies new words (or neologisms) it measures their extent and depth of usage with its PQI technology.

In Shakespeare’s day, there were only 2,000,000 speakers of English and fewer than 100,000 words. Shakespeare himself coined about 1,700 words. Thomas Jefferson invented about 200 words, and George W. Bush created a handful, the most prominent of which is, misunderestimate. US President Barack Obama’s surname passed into wordhood last year with the rise of obamamania.

Pick the Definition, May 28, 2009

Test your vocabulary skills on words about to officially enter the English language

.

The English Conquest (May 17, 2009)

.Chinglish Enriches English Vocabulary with Chinese Features (May 13)

News MagazineThe words in the mental cupboardApril 28, 2009

Watch: When Does a Word Become a Word?

BBC World Service, April 22, 2009

The Economist Predictions for 2009 Preview:

English Marks a Million

Listen to the segment on Morning Edition

Save the Date: English nears a milestone (Christian Science Monitor)

News Forcaster: When will English pass 1 million words?

Current forecast: after 3/30/08 and before 4/30/08 (45% chance)

A Contrary View of the Million Word March

ENGLISH AND ITS ODDITIES ; The word factory keeps producing

The Million Word March in Smithsonian Magazine

THE WORLD IN WORDS: Top Words of 2008

There are many things in the Universe that can never be precisely measured but that doesn’t stop Humankind from attempting to take their measure.

For example, there are on the order of:

7,000 human languages and dialects (6,912 to be precise);
About 50,000 ideograms in the various Chinese dialects (though countless more words);
About 100,000,000,000 stars in the Milky Way galaxy (and some 100,000,000,000 galaxies in the universe);
Over 35,500,000 residents of California;
And then there are 10 raised to the power of 72 atomic particles in the universe; that is, precisely:

10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,

000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atomic particles;

There are fewer than 100,000 words in the French language;

There are some 6.5 billion folks on the planet; (and about 20 billion that have ever walked upon the Earth);

Fewer than 20,000 different words in the Bible, (actually, 12,143 in the English, 783,137 total in the King James Version, 8,674 in the Hebrew Old Testament, and 5,624 in the Greek New Testament);

And 24,000 differing words to be found in the complete works of Shakespeare, about 1,700 of which he invented.

Finally, if you emptied all the water out of Lake Tahoe and spread it evenly over all of California it would be about 14 inches deep, Not that anyone would ever attempt to do so. Or actually, care.

Which brings us to the number of words in English.

The central idea of writing is, of course, the idea. Ideas by their very nature are wispy sorts of things. This being so, you can’t grab an idea and do with it what you will. Rather the best for which one can hope is to encapsulate the idea and preserve it for time immemorial in some sort of ethereal amber. We call this amber, language; the basic building block of which is, of course, the word. (We are speaking now as poets and not as linguists.)

As such, writers of English have the good fortune of having hundreds of thousands of words from which to choose. When you think of it, the English language writer always has at least three words for any idea, each rooted in the Latin, the Germanic or Saxon tongues, and the Greek. Think of a word for human habitation: city, town, metropolis, and so on. And that’s just the start. In the English-speaking world, we also owe a heavy debt to Algonquin, and Hebrew, and Malay (ketchup anyone?) and Maori, and Zulu and Hmong among a multitude of others. I think you can spot the beginnings of a trend here.

And then there is the entire realm of ”jargon,” scientific and otherwise, those specialized patois or vocabularies known only to those in specific fields. Computer-related jargon is multiplying at an extraordinary rate. And since English has become the lingua Franca of the Internet, English words are being created and non-English words co-opted at an ever-quickening pace.

Scientists estimate that there are approximately 10,000,000,000 neurons in a typical human brain. Each of these neurons can theorectically interconnect with all the rest.

This being so, the number of interconnects within a single human brain is greater than the entire number of atomic particles in the universe.

If you equate these interconnects to ideas, or even thoughts, the number of potential words needed to express them is, indeed, staggering on the order of billions and billions of trillions.

This being said, I now unequivocally state that as of the 10th day of June in the year 2009 AD (or CE, whatever your preference), we estimate that there were some 1,000,000 words in the English language, plus or minus a handful.

Choose well among them.

PJJP

Danville. California, USA

Special Report, April 23, 2009

Neologisms

t’s difficult to track the number of words in the English language, since neologisms — new words — are coined every day. The Global Language Monitor claims our lexicon will welcome its millionth word by the end of this month; other experts disagree.Whenever it does occur, will the millionth word be something from the business world, like “carpocalypse,” describing the state of the automotive industry? Or from Hollywood, like “momager,” the mother of a celebrity who also serves as business manager? In these stories, we look at our changing language and highlight some of the new words that have entered it.

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The ‘millionth’ word in the English language is Web 2.0

What a crushing anticlimax! We wait 1,500 years to welcome the millionth word into the English language, with the champagne on ice and the fatted calf slain and oven-ready for the newcomer’s arrival.

Then at long last it appears, snuggling into the crisp white space we’ve cleared for it in the dictionary . . . and it turns out to be an outrageous impostor.

I mean, I ask you: ‘Web 2.0’? Do you call that a word? In my book, it’s no more a word than ‘Bog 43.7’.

But, apparently, I’m wrong. For on Wednesday, a Texas-based internet company solemnly announced that at precisely 10.22 GMT that morning, this wretched expression, meaning nothing more interesting than ‘the next generation of worldwide web products’, joined the language to bring the number of English words in common usage into seven figures.

Now, ‘web’ is a fine and useful term, I grant you. Without it, English speakers would be left groping helplessly for a nice short expression to stand for all kinds of networks — from that spirally, gossamer thingumajig spun by spiders to the whatchamacallit that connects us through our computers to every nerd, weirdo and Viagra salesman on the planet.

But it’s hardly new. Indeed, volume 12 of my treasured Oxford English Dictionary tells me that the word ‘web’ has been knocking around since the beginning of the 8th century, when it meant: ‘Woven fabric; spec. a whole piece of cloth in process of being woven or after it comes from the loom.’ (It must have been a huge relief to the nation’s cloth-weavers when ‘web’ came along, to spare them having to repeat that mouthful 50 times a day.)

The digits 2.0 have been around even longer, since the revolutionary decimal Hindu-Arabic numeral system was invented in India in the middle of the 6th century. But they’re a number, for goodness’ sake, not a word. You can’t just stick an ancient word and an ancient number together and claim you’ve coined a spanking-new word.

Oh yes you can, says that Texas firm. If I understand its methodology, Global Language Monitor scours the internet 24 hours a day, recording how frequently expressions appear — and when a new one pops up more than 25,000 times, the company deems it to have qualified as a fully-fledged word.

How depressing it is that ‘Web 2.0’ breasted the finishing-tape at the crucial moment, snatching the title from some of the other close contenders, far worthier of celebration as our millionth word.

Take ‘slumdog’ — popularised, of course, by the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire — which notched up its 25,000th internet mention only hours before Web 2.0, so becoming the 999,997th English word recognised by GLM.

Defined as ‘a formerly disparaging, now often endearing, description of those residing in the slums of India’, it’s a wonderfully evocative word, instantly conjuring up the sights and smells of the back streets of Bombay.

It has the bonus of rolling most satisfyingly off the tongue — and since I first heard it, I’ve used it almost daily to address my sons (you should see the state of their rooms!).

Or take ‘sexting’, meaning sending an email or text with sexual content. Or ‘chiconomics’ — ‘the ability to maintain one’s fashion sense, such as shopping at Primark, in the middle of the current financial crisis’.

More from Tom Utley for the Daily Mail…

Do marriages thrive when wives put husbands first? TOM UTLEY reveals how after 43 years under Mrs U’s thumb, he’s in no doubt who is really the boss! 13/04/23
TOM UTLEY: I’ve often mocked Mrs U’s maddening refusal to embrace the online world. But after reading about AI I’m beginning to fear she may be right 06/04/23
TOM UTLEY: After writing our wills Mrs U and I are better prepared for the end than ever. But now scientists say we might live to 122! 30/03/23
From the local deli to Jeremy Clarkson’s TV farm, TOM UTLEY asks: Why can’t meddling politicians stop stifling business? 23/03/23
TOM UTLEY: Joyless Jeremy’s not only insulted my pint, he’s punishing all my vices like no other Chancellor in history! 16/03/23
TOM UTLEY: Why is it that, unlike the serene Joanna Lumley, the less work I do the more stressed I become? 23/02/23
TOM UTLEY: Like our thrifty King, I can’t bear to throw away my holey socks — but Mrs U has other ideas! 10/02/23
TOM UTLEY: Only a mug like me would keep forking out for the racket that is pet insurance — and handing money to greedy vets 03/02/23
TOM UTLEY: If you want my advice, a philosopher’s warning that we shouldn’t offer advice is one piece of advice we’d all be well advised to ignore 26/01/23
VIEW FULL ARCHIVE

Or how about ‘greenwashing’, English word number 999,992, defined as: ‘Rebranding an old, often inferior product as environmentally friendly.’ Could there be a more perfect way to describe what David Cameron has done to the Conservative Party?

Unlike Web 2.0, all these splendid coinages pass the first test of fitness to be welcomed into English: they fill gaps in our language, expressing distinctive and easily recognisable meanings that cannot be conveyed more economically by words already available to us.

The surprising thing is that so many of these gaps exist in English — by far the world’s richest language, with a vocabulary vastly larger than any other. Indeed, every day of my working life, there are moments when I suffer agonies of despair, trying to find the words to transfer even the simplest thoughts from my mind to paper — and finding that they just aren’t available.

It never ceases to infuriate me, for example, that in this cornucopia of a million words, there’s no simple, gender-neutral pronoun standing for ‘he-or-she’.

That means we either have to word our way round the problem by using plurals — which don’t mean quite the same thing — or we’re reduced to the verbose and clunking construction: ‘If an MP steals taxpayers’ money, he or she should be ashamed of himself or herself.’ (‘Themselves’, employed to stand for a singular MP, would, of course, be a grammatical abomination).

So many gaps are there in our language that two friends from my youth, the late Douglas ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide’ Adams and John Lloyd, had the brilliant idea of pressing place-names into service to stand for the hundreds of common experiences, feelings, situations and objects that we all know and recognise, but for which no words exist.

They put together a whole book of them, The Meaning Of Liff [sic], which I recommend to anyone who hasn’t read it. They define ‘Epping’, for instance, as: ‘The futile movements of forefingers and eyebrows used when failing to attract the attention of waiters and barmen.’

Or how about ‘Hoff’: ‘To deny indignantly something which is palpably true’? Gordon Brown is hoffing all the time. So how unjust it is that ‘hoff’ hasn’t made it into accepted English usage, while Web 2.0 is feted by GLM as our millionth word.

Mind you, as every grown-up will realise, the company’s claim for the expression is based on a wholly ridiculous exercise — and Web 2.0 is no more our millionth word than I’m the Emperor of China.

If you count scientific and specialist terms as English words, we passed the million mark many years ago — and I’ve heard it said the language’s total vocabulary, of expressions old and new, is not far short of 1.5million (though even the most literate know only about 50,000 of them — and we use barely a tenth of those in everyday speech).

But we mustn’t be too hard on the techies at GLM. For they’ve done us the enormous service of reminding us what a treasure we have in our language — and how, for all its omissions, it beats the pants off every other under the sun.

Let’s face it, there’s not much else we can be proud of these days. Once upon a time, we could boast of our empire and the might of the Royal Navy, the world-beating prowess of our cricketers and footballers — and the unshakeable integrity of our police officers, bankers and politicians, who put the rest of the world to shame.

But what are we left with now, apart from the most richly-stocked language on Earth — still growing, according to GLM’s calculations, at the rate of one new word every 98 minutes as it pillages other tongues for their most useful words?

Long may it continue to do so — and long may we revel in it, glory in it and cherish it as the strongest-remaining bond, holding the peoples of these islands together.

Yet even this bond has been allowed to fray over the past few decades, in the vogue for multiculturalism that has encouraged new settlers to stick to their own tongues and traditions, cut off from the majority population by a wall of incomprehension.

If we want national unity and a sense of belonging for everyone, our first step must surely be to tear down that language barrier and insist that all new arrivals learn English. If they do, they’ll be sharing in the greatest gift that our country has to offer the world.

One final plea. As we welcome Web 2.0 aboard, albeit grudgingly, may we please set up a Royal Commission to coin that missing gender-neutral pronoun, meaning ‘he-or-she’?

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The
millionth word in the English language

It
is being claimed that
the millionth word in the English language is about to be created. A
US company which follows the use of language on the Internet has made
the prediction. However, traditional dictionary makers aren’t so
sure. The idea of the millionth word entering the English language is
a brilliant bit of public relations for Texas-based Global Language
Monitor (GLM). GLM runs a powerful search service which monitors web
traffic. They make their money telling organizations how often their
name is mentioned in new media, such as the Internet.

What
they can also do is search for newly coined words. Once a word has
been used 25 000
times
on social networking sites and such like, GLM declares it to be a new
word.

By
their calculations a new word is created in English every
98 minutes,
hence they estimate that the millionth word is about to be created.

If
you talk to lexicographers, however, dictionary professionals, they
tell a slightly different story. Dictionaries have tighter
criteria about what constitutes a new word, for example, it has to be
used over a certain period of time.

Lexicographers
will tell you that the exact size of English vocabulary is impossible
to quantify, but if you accept every technical term or obscure
specialist word then we’re already way beyond a million.

And
if you restrict inclusion of specialist slang, then there are
possibly three
quarters of a million words in English. All
of which is way beyond the 20-40,000 words that a fluent speaker
would use, or the few thousand you could get by with in English.
Basically, with 1.5 billion people speaking some version of the
language, it’s small wonder – English is the fastest growing
tongue in the world.

Answer
the following questions.

What
prediction has a US company made?
How
does GLM make money?
What
do lexicographers tell you about dictionary criteria?
Why
is it impossible to quantify English vocabulary?
How
many words would a fluent speaker use without restriction?

Put
questions to the underlined parts of the sentences.

Give
English equivalents to:

Робити
провіщування (делать предсказание)
Бути
впевненими (бать уверенным)
Суспільні
стосунки (общественные отношения)
Враховувати
кожний технічний термін (учитывать
каждый технический термин)
Людина,
що вільно володіє мовою (человек, который
свободно владеет языком)

Give
Ukrainian (Russian variant) to:

To
follow the use of language
To
be mentioned in mass media
Newly
coined words
To
have tighter criteria
To
restrict inclusion of specialist slang

Choose
the correct form of the pronouns. Insert “some”, “somebody”,
“something” “somewhere” or “any”, “anybody”,
“anything”, “anywhere”.

Have
you got … pencils in your bag?
Do
we have … chalk on the blackboard?
She
has … mistakes in her test.
Could
you give me … milk, please?
I
can’t find my book … . I have looked all over the house.

Insert
“few” or “little”.

There
are very … old houses left in the street. Most of them have
already been pulled down.
If
you have … spare time, look through this book.
There
are … things here that I can’t understand.
There
is … chalk on the desk.
He
had … English books at home, so he had to go to the library for
more books.

Insert
“much” or “many”.

She
is a very quiet person. She doesn’t say ….
I
put … salt in the soup. Perhaps too ….
…people
do not like flying.
The
man was badly injured in the accident. He lost … blood.
It’s
not a very lively town. There isn’t … to do.

Open
brackets using Present Continuous or Present Simple.

Who
that man (to be) who (to stand) in the doorway? – You (not to
recognize) him? It (to be) John, my cousin.
I
(to have) no time now. I (to have) dinner.
Your
family (to leave) St. Petersburg in summer? – Yes, we always (to
go) to the seaside. We all (to like) the sea.
Where
Tom and Nick (to be) now? – They (to have) a smoke in the garden.
What
you (to do) here now? – We (to listen) to the tape recordings.

Open
brackets using Past Continuous or Past Simple.

She
(to wash) the floor at 4 o’clock yesterday.
I
(to meet) Nick at 3 o’clock yesterday.
When
I (to go) to the museum, I (to see) a big crowd of people in the
street.
They
(to play) in the yard in the evening yesterday.
They
(to play) in the yard the whole evening yesterday.

Open
brackets using Present Perfect or Past Simple.

He
(to go) already?
When
you (to see) him last?
I
(not to see) him for ages.
His
health (to improve) greatly since I (to see) him last.
You
(to pass) your driving test yet? – Yes, I (to pass) it in May, but
I (not to buy) a car yet.

Open
brackets using Past Simple or Past Perfect.

Nick
(to show) the teacher the picture which he (to draw).
The
boy (to give) the goats the grass which he (to bring) from the
field.
Mother
(to see) that Nick (not to wash) his hands.
The
teacher (not to understand) that Lena (not to do) her homework.
I
(to know) that my friend (not yet to come).

Translate
using necessary tenses.

Что
делают дети? – Они играют в новую игру,
которую я только что им купил.
Они
уже дошли до угла улицы и стоят на
автобусной остановке.
После
того как мы прошли 2 часа, мы прибыли в
красивый сад со свежей травой.
Библиотекарь
дала книгу, которую я ожидала 2 месяца.
Я пошла домой и начала читать ее сразу
же.
Не
отвлекай его: он занят, он выполняет
срочную работу.

Translate
the following sentences into Russian, paying attention to the
Passive Voice.

This
film can be seen at our cinema.
Spartan
children were taught by their parents to endure all hardships.
Which
article was translated by your brother?
They
were being taught drawing at that lesson?
This
name was seldom mentioned in his novels.

Open
brackets using Passive or Active Voice.

He
said that Grandmother’s letter (to receive) the day before.
Two
new engineers just (to introduce) to the head of the department.
We
(to finish) this work in time.
They
(to build) this house in 2001.
They
(to sell) new children’s books at that shop when I entered it
yesterday.

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It could have been «coddies», «chengguan», «slumdog» or even «fundoo». «Jai Ho!» would have been fun. Even «noob» wouldn’t have been that bad. But when a group of US wordsmiths in Texas claimed today that the millionth word in the English language was Web 2.0, there must have been collective sigh of disappointment among those lexicographers who hadn’t already declared the idea preposterous.

The Global Language Monitor (GLM), based in Austin, calculated that a neologism is created on average every 98 minutes and that «Web 2.0», a term for the next generation of internet applications, should be formally crowned the millionth word.

Paul JJ Payack, the president and chief word analyst of the Global Language Monitor, said that the contenders to be the millionth word had come from Silicon Valley, India, China, and Poland, as well as Australia, Canada, the US and the UK. «English has become a universal means of communication. Never before have so many people been able to communicate so easily with so many others,» he said.

With more than 1.53 billion speakers around the world, and more than 600,000 words listed in the Oxford English Dictionary, the English language dwarfs neighbouring European tongues. French registers a mere 100,000 words, while the Spanish fare only slightly better with 250,000.

GLM’s figure gives English twice as many words as Mandarin Chinese, the world’s second most abundant language.

«The million-word milestone brings to notice the coming of age of English as the first truly global language,» saidPayack.

Needless to say, academics are sceptical. Professor David Crystal, professor of linguistics at Bangor University, called the idea «the biggest load of rubbish I’ve heard in years».

He said: «It is total nonsense. English reached 1 million words years ago. It’s like someone standing by the side of the road counting cars, and when they get to 1 million pronouncing that to be the millionth car in the world. It’s extraordinary.»

Having blogged about the forthcoming event on his website, Crystal received a reply from Payack admitting, that with 600,000 species of fungus, there were undoutedly «many more than 1 million English words» and adding that the number was an estimate.

«The million-word march is meant to celebrate the richness, cultural diversity and the dynamic growth of English,» Payack said.

Linguistic spats aside, what the «millionth» new word would has been a subject of intense debate. Words are analysed according to the number of citations, geographical spread and number of appearances in media and on the internet. Contenders included bangsters (across between a banker and a gangster) and sexting (sending email or text messages with sexual content). Others vying for the title were wonderstar, after Susan Boyle’s spectacular rise and fall on TV talent show Britain’s Got Talent, greenwashing, re-branding an old, often inferior, product as environmentally friendly, and quendy-trendy, allegedly a British youth term for hip or up-to-date.

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Gullible reporters keep falling for a self-aggrandizing scam perpetrated by Paul J.J. Payack, who runs an outfit called Global Language Monitor. As regular Language Log readers know, Mr. Payack has been trumpeting the arrival of «the millionth word» in English for some time now. In fact, he’s predicted that the English language would pass the million-word mark in 2006… and 2007… and 2008… and now 2009. As reported in the Christian Science Monitor and The Economist, the date that Payack has now set for the million-word milestone is April 29, 2009.

In a previous installment of the Payack saga, I wrote that the Million Word March was «a progression that he turns on and off based on his publicity needs.» So I can’t say I was terribly surprised to learn that April 29, 2009 just happens to be the publication date of the paperback edition of Payack’s book, A Million Words and Counting: How Global English Is Rewriting The World. What a stupendous coincidence that Global Language Monitor’s word-counting algorithm has timed itself to accord with Payack’s publishing schedule!

A quick review for newcomers to the story. Payack’s million-word claim first popped up on our radar in early 2006. In February of that year, Payack told The Times of London that «the one millionth word is likely to be formed this summer.» Then in August 2006 he said it would happen that coming November. In early 2007 I observed that the Million Word March seemed to have gotten stalled, and speculated that it might have had something to do with the serious debunkage the claims had received from Jesse Sheidlower on Slate and our own Geoff Nunberg on NPR’s «Fresh Air.» As it turns out, the more likely reason for Payack’s slowdown had to do with rolling out his book to cash in on the lexico-quackery.

Here’s what I’ve been able to piece together about Payack’s latest maneuvers. A Million Words and Counting was originally slated by his publisher, Citadel Press (an imprint of Kensington Books), to appear as a hardback in April 2008. The publisher page for this edition announced, «In 2007, the English language passed the million-word mark.» The following month Payack put out a press release for the hardcover asserting that «English will adopt its millionth word in 2008.» This same claim appears on the back flap of the hardcover edition locatable on Google Book Search. (I haven’t actually seen a physical copy of this edition, copyright 2008, but I assume it exists somewhere.) Then the publisher announced that a trade paperback would be released on April 29, 2009. And of course the goalposts were moved yet again, with the announcement stating that the millionth word would be achieved not in ’06, or ’07, or ’08, but ’09. (Really! No kidding this time!)

All the while, Payack has continued to dress up his claims with pseudo-scientific talk of an «algorithm» that precisely calculates the size of the lexicon and predicts its future growth. In a press release dated June 30, 2008, Payack stated that «English will adopt its millionth word within a ten-day period centered upon April 29, 2009.» The «ten-day period» presumably is intended to give the impression of a statistical margin of error produced by Payack’s magic algorithm. A lovely idea, except that this algorithm has evidently failed in its prediction of passing the million-word milestone for three years running.

In my February 2007 post, «Whatever happened to the millionth word?», I checked up on past claims reported on the Global Language Monitor website for incremental growth in the size of the lexicon, using the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. Let’s continue to monitor the Monitor:

11/16/03:	816,167
11/28/04:	823,481
3/30/05:	856,435
5/19/05:	866,349
11/3/05:	895,479
1/16/06:	985,955
1/26/06:	986,120
3/21/06:	988,968
10/16/06:	989,614
12/19/06:	991,207
12/31/06:	991,833
4/2/07:	991,833
5/16/07:	993,412
8/14/07:	994,638
10/23/07:	995,116
12/23/07:	995,116
2/13/08:	995,117
11/7/08:	997,752
1/1/09:	998,773
4/29/09:	*1,000,000*

There are apparently no archived pages for the site after February 2008, and I wasn’t bothering to check the site myself very much over the past year. But it’s still quite easy to see the asymptotic approach to a million words, ever since the big jump at the end of 2005 in advance of Payack’s first round of self-promotional puffery. Now at least we know what’s holding things up: the media blitz planned for his next publication date. It’s my fervent hope that in 2009 Payack’s manipulation of his bogus figures will be immediately transparent to any journalist with the ability to Google. But given the track record of how easily the media has been duped for the past three years, I’m not holding my breath.

[Update: I should note that the Economist piece linked above, by John Grimond is rightfully skeptical of the Payack poppycock, so not all journalists are so credulous. Daniel Franklin, executive editor of The Economist, continued poking fun at Payack’s prediction on NPR’s Morning Edition.]

January 3, 2009 @ 3:37 am
· Filed by Ben Zimmer under Ignorance of linguistics, Language and the media, Words words words

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SEE ALSO

Lexicography 2.0: The Chambers Reference Editor’s blog

Having Gained its Millionth Word, English Marches On (July 20)

English is the Word Millionaire (20 Minuten) June 22

Simon Winchester: “On the Joys of our truly Global Language” — London Telegraph

Word Nerd from ABC Nightline (Video)

BBC News ‘Today’ Show, English Reaches Million Word Milestone (Audio)

English Passes a Million Words — La Stampa

GLM’s Answers Frequently Asked Questions about the Million Word March

The Words in the Mental Cupboard (BBC Magazine)

English Acquires its One Millionth Word (The Times)

Ars Technica

Computerworld

Christian Science Monitor

There are 10,000 other stories hailing the arrival of the 1,000,000th word from Abu Dhabi, and Tehran, to Beijing, to Sydney, to Chicago and Sri Lanka.

Web 2.0 beats Jai Ho & N00b as 1,000,000th English Word

English Language Millionth Word Finalists Announced, including: alcopops, bangster, de-friend, n00b, quendy-trendy, slumdog, and wonderstar

Pick the Definition, May 28, 2009

Test your vocabulary skills on words about to officially enter the English language

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The English Conquest (May 17, 2009)

.Chinglish Enriches English Vocabulary with Chinese Features (May 13)