With Web 2.0 making its debut as the millionth word in the English language this past month (according to the Global Language Monitor) we have been introduced to a new interpretation of what we can classify as an English word.

What counts towards this million-word marker to begin with, given the many slang words that are created daily and the many compound words which are not included in many English dictionaries? Do we count the million odd insect species names or the 80 million chemical compounds?

While the millionth word may seem like a milestone in the history of the English language, it raises many questions among linguists and the general public.

I know that to most people, Web 2.0 does not seem like a word which should be included in any dictionary, much less count as the millionth word in the English language. Linguists who are supporting this new millionth word maintain that it appears in over 25,000 internet searches online, thereby making it popular enough to be construed as a word of importance within the language. While the word originated as a technical term referring to the next generation of web products, it has gained much circulation in the past six months, causing it to originally be considered amongst words like slumdog and n00b as a contender for the millionth word.

Read the rest of this entry »