Did you know what a vuvuzela was last year? How about a spillcam? These are two of the top used words of the last year, according to the Global Language Monitor. The GLM, which gathers information, based upon social media and news trends, put out the list recently, which also included "refudiate," a conflation of "refute" and "repudiate" used by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin; “guido,” and “Tea Party.” The list incites an interesting visual. Couldn't you just see Snooki enjoying tea with Palin, talking about international affairs and the oil spill? No? Alright.
CNN says: The top words this year come from the World Cup, an environmental disaster, and political malapropisms. Paul JJ Payack, president of The Global Language Monitor was quoted, “This is fitting for a relentlessly growing global language that is being taken up by thousands of new speakers each and every day.”
I’m not sure whether there is much of a method to this, or if they were simply monitoring the Trending Topics on Twitter for a year, but I appreciate a good algorithm explaining semantics. Language is fueled by communication, and as I have stressed: communication is key for just about… anything.
.png "English"){kind=small}
