Comments on: English's Millionth Word: Web 2.0

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:03:30 +0000

"The Web is evolving so quickly, it’s clear the “versioning” terminology that we borrowed from the software industry – Version 1.0, 2.0, etc. – no longer captures the pace and impact of the Web’s true nature. The web opportunity is no longer growing arithmetically, it’s growing exponentially. Hence our theme for this year: Web Squared."

You're just calling it that because I already own WebPointX.com aren't you?

In any case, Web Squared still locks you in a bit, doesn't it?

Scott

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 08:46:43 +0000

Sorry, my comment appeared twice!

By: Tom Clarke

Tom Clarke — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 08:42:39 +0000

Yes, I’m afraid I’ll have to concur with the other comments (except for that ten or twenty thousand bit).

The Global Language Monitor has been reporting this same ‘fact’ each year for at least three years now (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/07/national/main1482464.shtml) but it’s simply not accepted by experts in the lexicon.

Attempting to define the number of words in the English language is really an absurd act, depending entirely on where you set the boundaries of what is and isn’t a word in the language. Including all possibly acceptable words (regional variants, technological, medical and scientific jargon, words recently adopted from other languages), I’ve heard that the number could be as high as 2 million. But that was just an estimate.

By: Tom Clarke

Tom Clarke — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 08:41:43 +0000

Yes, I’m afraid I’ll have to concur with the other comments (except for that ten or twenty thousand bit).

By: Lucas Gonze

Lucas Gonze — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 03:28:28 +0000

Not to rain on this parade, because this is a fun thing to talk about, but how many words there are is a very fuzzy question. It's so fuzzy that the idea of a precise 1,000,000 is pretty hard to support.

A more likely number is something like ten or twenty thousand.

By: Louise McGregor

Louise McGregor — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:44:35 +0000

I don't believe it is the 1 millionth word.

It's 80,000% more common on a google search than the 1,000,001 word (which was "finanical tsunami")

I think it's all a PR stunt, as per my blog.

http://changememe.com/