'Millionth English word' declared: "Web 2.0"

[steven johnson]

English adopts words from foreign languages, retains their spelling and drives those of us with poor spelling crazy.

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.

Global Language Monitor (GLM) searches the internet for newly coined terms, and once a word or phrase has been used 25,000 times, it recognises it.

Dictionaries have tighter criteria about what constitutes a new word. For example, it has to be used over a certain period of time.

Lexicographers say the exact size of the English vocabulary is impossible to quantify, but if every technical term or obscure specialist word is accepted then we are already beyond one million, according to our correspondent.

'Millionth English word' declared

[Odin2005]

1. Depends on how you define "word"

for example, "disability" can be treated as a word or "merely" as a derivation of the lexical root "able"