Millionth word in English imminent?
A new word is added to the English language every 98 minutes, says the Global Language Monitor, a descendant of yourDictionary.com. (Ironically, the group's "about" page has "dictionary" misspelled as "dictioanry" in one place.) According to the Global Language Monitor's best estimate, the millionth English word will be coined sometime next April. However, the Global Language Monitor is a bit looser with its acceptance of new words than most dictionaries. For example, unabridged dictionaries include about 600,000 words, compared to the 900,000 tracked thus far by the Global Language Monitor. From Smithsonian:
"We went back to the Middle English and saw that the definition of a word was 'a thought spoken,'" said Paul JJ Payack, president and chief word analyst at the Monitor, "which means if I say a word, and you understand me, it's a real word."The Million Word March
Payack counts staycation, Facebook and Wikipedia as words. But he also follows some of the old rules. For example, words that are both noun and verb, such as "water" are counted only once. He doesn't count all the names there are for chemicals, because there are hundreds of thousands.
Once the Monitor identifies a word, it tracks it over time, watching to see where the word appears. Based on that measurement, they decide if the word has "momentum," basically, whether it's becoming more popular or if it's a one-hit wonder of the linguistic world.
At first glance, this seems a lot like a dictionary's system.
"It's the same as the old [method], just recognizing the new reality," Payack said. The Monitor's method gives a lot more weight to online citations.
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Dictioanry: It's not a misspelling, it's a new word!
Wow, that article was very snurp!
David, Payack is completely without credibility and "Global Language Monitor" is a joke. You've been snookered, as has the Smithsonian Magazine.
These articles covers the bases:
http://www.slate.com/id/2139611/
http://158.130.17.5/~myl/languagelog/archives/002809.html
HAHAHA! Perfect responses, both of them.
Its funny how often non words like, "aint" or, "zillion" end up in dictionaries. I had a bet with a coworker once that zillion is not an actual number. The bet was dropped when he found zillion in a dictionary - it means an unspecified very large number.
Scrabble rules have it right; if it's not in the dictionary, it's not a real word.
I make up words all the time. Some people though always feel the need to point out that they "aren't words". I ask them what they mean that the words I make up aren't words. They reply that they aren't in the dictionary so they aren't words. When were we all brainwashed that the dictionary decides what words are words, when in fact the dictionary follows US? It's not the other way around. It follows us quite slowly, true, but it does indeed follow us and our use of the language. Keeripes!!!
Keeripes: A kind of small smoked pilchard.
I found this definition in the Dictioanry.
Grant_Barrett @3, Thanks for those links. Definitely interesting stuff! But I don't think I was snookered at all. I specifically said that the Global Language Monitor is looser with its acceptance of words. And I think the Smithsonian article was trying to point out the various mindsets around this kind of thing. That said, they (and I) could probably have been more direct in stating that the Global Language Monitor is, er, controversial.
Dictioanry is not cromulent.
"Ironically..."
I don't think that word means what you think it does.
"which means if I say a word, and you understand me, it's a real word."
I'm gonna have to quote this guy at my next scrabble game.
There is quite a bit of cultural-conservative nonsense out there about how dictionaries that are descriptive aren't real dictionaries and will instead cause young minds to abandon Cicero in favor of that infernal rap music or something. This despite the fact that dictionaries aren't usage guides.
Thesauruses and style guides? Make 'em prescriptive all the way. But dictionaries are tools for cataloguing the standard definitions of words people use; a non-descriptive dictionary is an oxymoron.
Actual human language follows dictionaries the way plate tectonics follows maps.
btw, I take no credit for making up "keeripes"...I think I heard it in a cartoon once :-)
I take it they don't include domain specific vocabulary. Especially sciences and technology. I seem to remember the count was well over a million some time ago, but the majority (two-thirds maybe?) was specific to scientific and technological disciplines.
That ring a bell with anyone, or is that recollection just a by-product of what I like to call my Hallucinatory Period?
In college, one of my professors gave a lecture on dictionaries, and how in the early 20th century, dictionary editors trimmed about 100,000 words out of their volumes because the unabridged versions were getting to large to print.
Here's my contribution to English: Sinatrafarian. Describes a little known Carribean sect of people who worship Frank Sinatra ala Haile Selassie.
Sinatra Lives...Sinatra Lives...yeah yeah...
@Michael D
"Actual human language follows dictionaries the way plate tectonics follows maps."
I love that analogy, I will have to use that the next time this topic comes up in real life.
Reminds me of going on a tour round Paris this summer, Apparently the Academie Francais has been working on the latest version of of the official dictionary since about 1950, and is currently on "M". They also came up with a word for "weekend", but not only does no-one use it (they use "le weekend") but most French people won't understand you if you use it. A total farce.
This is inaccurate. Dictionaries only contain a small fraction of the words in a language. See
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kU_CiErwkFA
for a project that attempts to list all english words.
I hope the millionth words is:
Lulz!
Go English! Grow! Grow! Grow!
Love,
Superforest.org
@#5: You really are a complete snob. Of course "zillion" is a real word. It doesn't represent a number, but it sure as hell works as a real word (it's called hyperbole).
The same with "ain't" (btw, if you are going to get on a high horse about language, make sure you get your punctuation right). In the seventeenth century, when people started using contractions, "am not" became "ain't" (similar to how "are not" became "aren't" and "can not" became "can't"). Stupid people who wanted dictate how normal people should speak started saying that this was "vulgar" or "ugly". Thanks to that, we still use completely bonkers expressions like "Aren't I?" (how often do you start a sentence "I are..."). It would make much more sense to sense to say "Ain't I?", but because of hypercorrection, this is still considered wrong.
"Ain't" is a wonderful construction that should be embraced. This delightful expression has been maligned for too long, and it's time for us to fight back!
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone. "It means just what I choose it to mean - neither more or less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."
— Lewis Carroll
Dictionaries are like museums for words. Just because something isn't in the museum doesn't mean it isn't art and just because it's not in the dictionary doesn't mean it's not a word.
We're way over a million words. We may even be up to a zillion at this point.
modget
I suspect the Global Language Monitor's main purpose is to draw attention to itself.
A few years back I noticed their "10 most politically correct terms of the year". If I can quote myself:
I'm not sure how the list was generated, And I don't think even they know what they mean by politically correct language. Any attempt to find an explanation on their site is doomed to painful failure and the list itself is just inconsistent.
Did you know 'gullible' isn't in the dictionary?
The methodology behind the Million Word March is a matter of public (and published) record.
The MWM has been discounted by a handful of critics that who invariably fail to acknowledge that there is a methodology. Their objections have been repeated by others who can't be troubled to actually look into our research. Those who do, end up writing fair, balanced articles like that found in Smithsonian Magazine.
I would also note that our methodology has been tested by various government agencies, financial institutions, as well as by media the world over. Our work has been incorporated into dozens of academic journals, studies and books. We are in the process of documenting the methodology for a prominent journal of statistics.
Critics always maintain that all these fine institutions have been 'snookered' or 'duped'. Not a difference in opinion, mind you; not an honorable disagreement, but rather 'snookered'. And always pointing to the same tired links, totally ignoring the hundreds of others that have arrived at a differing conclusion.
(With a million words to choose from, you would think they could come up with any number of more accurate terms.)
And, yes, I will admit that we occasionally make typographical errors.
The MWM has excited thousands around the world to look into the language through fresh eyes, who are now documenting suspected new words that they find (and sometimes invent) in unprecedented numbers.
Please feel free to visit the Global Language Monitor and leave any and all comments.
PJJP
Paul JJ Payack
PS While reading the introduction to Merriam-Webster's Unabridged many years ago, I, too, was surpised, startled actually, by the statement that a hundred thousand, or more, words had been eliminated becuase the book binding did not permit a larger book. Where were all those wonderful words, I thought, and what might they be?
Paul @27, thank you for engaging in the discussion!
"Millthump" (n) the one millionth of anything, notable only for its being the one millionth.
Looking at the about page, I doubt the misspelling of dictionary in "yourDictioanry.com" was ironic, it's probably just a mistake.
"We went back to the Middle English and saw that the definition of a word was 'a thought spoken,'" said Paul JJ Payack, president and chief word analyst at the Monitor, "which means if I say a word, and you understand me, it's a real word."
This is entirely satisfactory. Human language consists of mutual acceptance of words and their intended meanings. Without an accepter(s) a word is just a solitary sound, flung to the wind. Or glossolalia at Sarah Palin's church.
It takes two (at least) to talk or tango.
Global Language Monitor is a complete joke. Anyone who can write (as Paul JJ Payack does, in "Why Webster’s inclusion of the phrase ‘dark energy’ demonstrates the obsolence of old-style dictionaries"):
...has so little understanding of how languages and dictionaries actually work that any pretensions he might have to linguistic expertise should be roundly mocked.Or at least ignored.
The presence or absence of a word in a dictionary has nothing whatsoever to do with its "legitimacy" as a word.
And that article's basic thesis - that taking ten years to include a new bit of scientific jargon in a dictionary (particularly a new bit of scientific jargon that uses two common, well-defined words as a phrase meaning "something that we have no idea what the heck it is, but which must exist in order to reconcile our theories with recent observations") somehow "demonstrates the obsolence [sic] of old-style dictionaries" - is simply absurd.
Along with the equally absurd "Million Word March", it demonstrates that Payack is in the business of making grand pronouncements and issuing press releases about things he simply doesn't comprehend.
I would have to agree that "dark energy" is not a word.
If it is, then "large hadron collider" is a word too, and so is "all your base are belong to us" and if every meaningful new combination of words is a legitimate new word, then we reached a trillion words a long time ago.
is a kiai a word?
Wondering about a word? Here's the guy to ask.
"... means if I say a word, and you understand me, it's a real word."
What if the jackass saying the word doesn't understsand it? There's a lot of that going around in business ... as in "I hear others saying that word; I'll use it and seem cool."
And dumb motherfuckers who can't pronounce the words they use to try to sound intelligent ... pairuhdidgem is one example. (You know the one I'm talking about: it means "two dimes".)
--Mike
Wasn't "facebook" already a word before Facebook.com came along?
BRAWNDO,
Not unless somebody used it and somebody else accepted it. It's the tree-in-the-forest thing: Is a word a word unless there's somebody there to hear it and accept it? I say no; it's gibberish.
Kawaii!
"Ya'll."
Second person plural.
Bitches.
'Y'all' is second person singular. 'All y'all' is second person plural.
youse,and youse guys?
Other 999,999 words mostly misused....
I feel we should reserve the millionth word slot for quijibo.