Web 2.0 is millionth English word

Techspeak to the forefront in the growth of the language.

Roll over Shakespeare. Back of the line Milton - the millionth word in the English language has just been coined and it's "Web 2.0"

According to Global Language Monitor, a global language tracker, Web 2.0 has become the one millionth word or phrase in the English language. In a statement on its website, Global Language Monitor said that the term just pipped Jai Ho and slumdog - terms popularised by the film Slumdog Millionaire to the coveted millionth slot.

Global Language Monitor said that a new word is added to English every 98 minutes, something like 15 new words a day. Tech words score highly when it comes to new vocabulary: n00b just missed out on being the millionth word.

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Roll over Shakespeare. Back of the line Milton - the millionth word in the English language has just been coined and it's "Web 2.0"

According to Global Language Monitor, a global language tracker, Web 2.0 has become the one millionth word or phrase in the English language. In a statement on its website, Global Language Monitor said that the term just pipped Jai Ho and slumdog - terms popularised by the film Slumdog Millionaire to the coveted millionth slot.

Global Language Monitor said that a new word is added to English every 98 minutes, something like 15 new words a day. Tech words score highly when it comes to new vocabulary: n00b just missed out on being the millionth word.

All of these words met Global Language Monitor's criteria of a "minimum of 25,000 citations with the necessary breadth of geographic distribution, and depth of citations".

"As expected, English crossed the 1,000,000 word threshold on June 10, 2009 at 10:22 am GMT," said Paul Payack, president and chief word analyst of the Global Language Monitor.. "However, 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, 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."

Techspeak has some way to go to eclipse Shakespeare however. The playwright was responsible for adding 1,700 words to the language, more than any other individual.