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See how GLM Brand Affiliation Services can help your organization; call 1.512.815.8836 or email info@LanguageMonitor.com
The highest rated ‘branded individuals’ across fields include Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, and, the former Kate Middleton.
Austin, Texas January 14, 2012 – Tim Tebow, the reverent, knee-bending, soft-spoken quarterback of the Denver Broncos, has now claimed another milestone: Tebow now tops the Global Language Monitor‘s Sports Brand Affiliation Index (SBAI). The GLM SBAI tracks the top athletes in a variety of global athletic endeavors and measures the strength of their ‘brand affiliation’ to their particular sport.
Tebowing Child
For this analysis, GLM tracked athletes in American football, baseball, basketball, football (soccer), Formula 1, golf, NASCAR, tennis, track and field, skiing, and swimming.
The frenzy has only increased over the last week with Tebow’s dramatic touchdown pass on the first play of overtime to defeat the heavily favored (and defending conference champions) Pittsburgh Steelers.
Click here to see the ‘Tebowing’ enters the English Language Video
Tebow Scores Twice as High as No. 2 in the Sports BAI
The Sports BAI is one of a number of Leading Brand Affiliated Indicators that GLM uses to measure the influence of ‘branded individuals’ in fields as varied as Entertainment, Politics, Celebrity, Royalty, and the retired-yet-still powerful. The highest rated ‘branded individuals’ across fields include Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, and, of course, the former Kate Middleton.
GLM has previous noted that the rapid rise of ’tebowing’ as an English language word closely resembling the rate of adoption of the word Obamamania in early 2008. The first mention of ‘tebowing’ can be traced to the dramatic overtime victory of the Denver Broncos football team over the Miami Dolphins on October 23, 2011, when Tebow ‘took a knee’ in a moment of prayerful reflection.
The Sports BAI is one of a number of Brand Affiliated Indexes that GLM uses to measure the influence of ‘branded individuals’ in fields as varied as Entertainment, Politics, Celebrity, Royalty, and the retired-yet-still powerful.
GLM consultants employ its NarrativeTracker technologies for brand-affiliated tracking, forecasting, and analysis. NarrativeTracker is based on global discourse, providing a real-time, accurate picture about any topic at any point in time. NarrativeTracker analyzes the Internet, blogosphere, the top 75,000 print and electronic global media, as well as new media sources, as they emerge.
Non-sponsors Continue to Rank High on Brand Affiliation Index (BAI)
Austin, Texas, January 12, 2012. IBM Global Services, Dell, and Nike were among the Top “Ambush Marketers” for the London 2012 Olympics as ranked by The Global Language Monitor (GLM), the Internet and Media Trend Tracking Company. In the rankings, encompassing Q3 and Q4 of 2011, GLM measured the strength of the brand affiliation for each official Olympic sponsor as well as those of their primary non-affiliated competitors.
“There is more than pride at stake, since billions of dollars in incremental revenue are at risk for the official Olympic sponsors. In turn, these same organizations fund some 30% of staging the Games,” said Paul JJ Payack, president of the Austin, Texas based Global Language Monitor. “Though ‘ambush marketing’ is well understood to mean ‘an organization knowingly exploiting a brand affiliation with the Games without the benefit of official sponsorship’, all perceived Olympic sponsors (according to their presence in the global media and statistically linked to the London Games) qualify for GLM’s Ambush Marketing Index.”
There are twenty-five top official Olympic sponsors divided into three tiers: Worldwide Partners, Official Partners, and Official Supporters. GLM tracks over fifty non-affiliated companies that are direct competitors with the Official Olympic sponsors.
Measuring each tier against their ambushers, GLM has found that, for the second half of 2011, two of the three tiers of Ambushers beat their legitimate competitors according to the Q4 2011 Brand Affiliation Index.
Comparison of London 2012 Sponsors Vs. Ambushers by Q4 2011 BAI
Among Worldwide Partners
scored the highest on GLM’s Brand Affiliation Index (BAI) for Q4 2011.
In terms of movement, Omega and Coca-Cola both improved their BAIs by some 350%, over the last half of 2011.
Among Worldwide Partner Ambushers
all scored significantly higher on GLM’s BAI for Q4 2011 than their Worldwide Partner competitors. In terms of movement, IBM Global Services, Dell, and KFC all improved their BAI’s by 250% or more through the end of 2011.
Among Official Partners
scored the highest on GLM’s Brand Affiliation Index (BAI) for Q4 2011. In terms of movement, Lloyds TSB, the BT Group, and BP, all improved their BAI more than 100% over the last half of 2011.
Among Official Partner Ambushers
all scored significantly higher on GLM’s BAI for Q4 2011 than their Worldwide Partner competitors. In terms of movement, the 3i Group (Lloyds TSB), UnitedContinental (BA), and Nike (Adidas) all improved their BAI’s by 250% or more through the end of 2011.
Among Official Supporters,
scored the highest on GLM’s Brand Affiliation Index (BAI) for Q4 2011.
In terms of movement, Arcelor Mittal, Cadbury, Cisco Systems, and Adecco all improved their BAI more than 200% over the last half of 2011.
Among Official Supporter Ambushers,
all scored significantly higher on GLM’s BAI for Q4 2011 than their Official Supporter competitors.
In terms of movement, Hebie Steel (Arcelor Mittal), DHL (UPS), and Ericsson (Cisco) improved their BAI’s by 250% or more through the end of 2011.
Customized GLM Ambush Marketing Rankings are released monthly up to and following London 2012. They can also be individualized for any organization. The Ambush Marketing London 2012 report features dozens of charts representing the interrelationship of each company to the Olympic Brand, their competitors and their partners. In addition, the reports contain exclusive and individualized Narrative Tracker analyses, the most advanced trend tracking analytics available. For more information, individualized reports, or a monthly subscription, call +1.512.551.3627 or email info@LanguageMonitor.com.
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AUSTIN, Texas December 26, 2011 – Trending 2012: Multiple End-of-World scenarios, Kate, China, CERN, the Olympics, The US Elections will dominate word creation and usage in the English language in 2012.
“The year 2012 looks to be a vibrant year for the English language with word creation again driven by events both scheduled and unanticipated. Typically there is an ‘end-of-the-world’ scenario every few years that impacts the English language. This year we will see no fewer than three, including the Maya Apocalypse and the Solar Max,” said Paul JJ Payack, President and Chief Word Analyst of GLM.
”Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, will compete with the London Olympics, the economic surge of China, various activities involving the CERN atom smasher, and the US presidential election for Top Word honors, though we always allow for word creation generated from unexpected events such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005 or the Japanese ‘triple disaster’ of 2011.”
Rank / Word / Comments
7. Deficit — Looks like deficit-spending will plague Western democracies for at least the next decade.
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8. Rogue nukes — Iran and North Korea will be the focus of attention here.
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9. CERN — Neutrons traveling faster than light? The ‘God Particle’? The world ending in a mini-black hole? All these somehow revolve around CERN (The European Center for Nuclear Research). One CERN scientist calculated that the chance of a mini-Black Hole swallowing the Earth is less than 1 in 50,000,000. Somewhat comforting until you realize this is about ten times more likely than winning a national lottery.)
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10. Global Warming — The earth has been warming since New York was covered under a mountain of ice; what makes 2012 any different?
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11. Near-Earth Asteroid — Yet another year, another asteroid, another near-miss. (However, one does strike the Earth every one hundred million years or so.)
12. Europe — United, breaking apart, saving the Euro, abandoning the Euro, with the UK again as an ‘interested onlooker’. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Bonus Phrase: The successor term for ‘Arab Spring’, whatever that might be.
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GLM employs its NarrativeTracker technologies for global Internet and social media analysis. NarrativeTracker is based on global discourse, providing a real-time, accurate picture about any topic, at any point in time.
Austin, Texas December 12, 2011 (Dec. 16 update)– Tebowing, the act of ’taking a knee’ in prayerful reflection in the midst of an athletic activity, has been acknowledged as an English language word according to the Global Language Monitor.
The rapid rise of use of the word has seldom been equaled, mirroring, for example, the rate of adoption of the word Obamamania in early 2008. The first mention of the word can be traced to the dramatic overtime victory of the Denver Broncos football team over the Miami Dolphins on October 23, 2011. During the victory celebration, Tim Tebow ‘took a knee’ and was photographed in a moment of prayerful reflection. Tebow is the 2007 Heisman trophy winner who led the University of Florida to the 2008 BCS National Championship.
Though there is no official agency for accepting new words (or neologisms) into the English lexicon such as France’s Académie française, since 2003 the Global Language Monitor has been recognizing new words once they meet the criteria of a minimum number of citations across the breadth of the English-speaking world, with the requisite depth of usage on the Internet, in social media and in the top 75,000 global print and electronic media.
“Sports have become significant generators of new cultural trends and memes that transcend the athletic arena”, said Paul JJ Payack, president and chief word analyst of the Global Language Monitor. ”The ESPN sports broadcasting network has widely championed the word. Jared Kleinstein’s tebowing.com website, devoted to people posing in the ‘tebowing position’, has been wildly popular. The New York Times has recently carried an editorial on the subject and the Chinese search engine, Baidu.com, already has hundreds of citations for tebowing.” (See ’Tebowing Goes Global’ in The Daily Beast.)
The View from France
The Urban Dictionary defines ‘tebowing’ as ”To get down on a knee and start praying, even if everyone else around you is doing something completely different’.
The English language currently has some 1.58 billion speakers around the globe.
GLM released its Top Words, Phrases and Names of the Year lists on November 10th. Occupy is the Top Word of the Year, Arab Spring the Top Phrase of the Year, and Steve Jobs the Top Name of the Year.
GLM employs its NarrativeTracker technologies for global Internet and social media analysis. NarrativeTracker is based on global discourse, providing a real-time, accurate picture about any topic at any point in time. NarrativeTracker analyzes the Internet, blogosphere, the top 75,000 print and electronic global media, as well as new social media sources.
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AUSTIN, Texas December 6, 2011 (Updated from November 10) — The Global Language Monitor has announced that ‘Occupy’ is the Top Word, ‘Arab Spring’ the Top Phrase and ‘Steve Jobs’ the Top Name of 2011 in its annual global survey of the English language. Occupy was followed by deficit, fracking, drone, and non-veg. Kummerspeck, haboob, 3Q, Trustafarians, and (the other) 99 rounded out the Top 10.
“Our selections this year, to a large extent, reflect the ongoing political and economic uncertainty that seems to be affecting much of the developed world – with notable exceptions such as the Royal wedding and the continuing rise of China ,” said Paul JJ Payack, President of the Global Language Monitor.
“Our top words, phrases and names this year come from five continents… confirmation of the ever-expanding influence of the English language.
“The words are culled from throughout the English-speaking world, which now numbers more than 1.58 billion speakers. The Global Language Monitor’s Word of the Year rankings are based upon actual word usage in the English speaking world.
“In global English, words are not bestowed upon, agreed upon, or voted upon by cultural or academic elites but, rather, words are defined from the bottom up, that is, by the people themselves — and this is true whether in the East End of London, or south-central LA, the projects in Brooklyn, the slums of Kingston, the call centers of Mumbai, the streets of Singapore, the text messages out of Shanghai, or the fashion districts of Sydney.”
GLM employs its NarrativeTracker technologies for global Internet and social media analysis. NarrativeTracker is based on global discourse, providing a real-time, accurate picture about any topic, at any point in time. NarrativeTracker analyzes the Internet, blogosphere, the top 75,000 print and electronic global media, as well as new social media sources.
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Rank / Word / Comments
1. Occupy – ‘Occupy’ has risen to pre-eminence through Occupy Movement, the occupation of Iraq, and the so-called ‘Occupied Territories’. (Also named by NPR and Time.)
2. Deficit – Growing and possibly intractable problem for the economies of the developed world.
3. Fracking – Hydraulic fracturing is a controversial method for extracting fossil fuels from hitherto unreachable deposits.
4. Drone – The ever increasing number of remotely piloted aircraft used for reconnaissance and attack purposes.
5. Non-veg – A meal served with meat, originally from India, now catching on worldwide.
6. Kummerspeck – From the German seeing wider acceptance in the English, excess weight gained from emotional overeating (grief bacon).
7. Haboob – A name imported from the Arabic for massive sandstorms in the American Southwest.
8. 3Q – Near universal term for ‘thank you’ now earning additional status after being banned from official Chinese dictionaries. Another example of the ever- increasing mixing of numbers and letters to form words.
9. Trustafarians – Well-to-do youth (trust-funders) living a faux-Bohemian life style, now associated with the London Riots.
The Top Phrases of 2011
Rank / Phrase / Comment
1. Arab Spring – The series of uprisings, social protests, and rebellions occurring among many nations of the Arab World beginning this spring.
2. Royal Wedding – The wedding of the former Kate Middleton and heir-to-the-British-Throne, Prince William that captivated millions around the world.
3. Anger and Rage – Characterizations of the global electorate by the pundits, though closer analyses has revealed more frustration than anger and more disappointment than rage.
4. Climate Change – No. 1 phrase for the first decade of the 21st century; still resonates into its second decade.
5. The Great Recession – Though officially over, the media term most frequently used to describe the on-going global economic restructuring.
6. Tahrir Square – The scene of the ‘25th of January’ demonstrations in Cairo against Hosni Mubarak.
7. Linear No Threshold (LNT) – The methodology to calculate risk from exposure to radioactive elements from the Fukushima Daiiachi disaster.
9. ‘How’s that working out for you?’ – The New York Times credits Sarah Palin, but it predates her use of the phrase by several decades.
10. “Make no mistake about it!” – President Obama has repeated the phrase thousands of times since his 2008 election.
The Top Names of 2011
Rank / Name / Comments
2. Osama bin-Laden & Seal Team 6 – Who changed the world more? Al-Qaeda or Steve Jobs?
3. Fukushima – The epicenter of the Japanese Triple Disaster (earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown).
4. Mohamed Bouazizi – the Tunisian fruit vendor who set himself afire and became the symbol of Tunisian resistance – and the Arab Spring.
5. Chinese Paramount Leader Hu Jintao – The Rise of the Tiger being a primary cause of the Global Economic Restructuring.
6. Kate Middleton – She captivated the world with her elegance and style and continues to do so as the Duchess of Cambridge.
7. Muammar Gaddafi – Libyan strongman toppled in the recent insurrection.
8. President Obama – Hope and Change retreat further into the history books; the game plan is now for survival.
9. PIIGS – The nations of Portugal, Ireland, Italy Greece and Spain taken together for their untenable deficits possibly affecting the economic health of the Eurozone.
10. Yaroslavl Lokomotiv – The ill-fated elite Russian hockey team that was virtually wiped out in the crash of a three-engine Yak-42.
Top Words of the Decade
The Top Words of the Decade Global Warming, 9/11, and Obama outdistanced Bailout, Evacuee, and Derivative; Google, Surge, Chinglish, and Tsunami followed. Climate Change was top phrase; Heroes was the top name.
Previous Words of the Year include:
2010:
Top Words: No. 1 Spillcam, No. 2 Vuvuzela, No. 3 The Narrative
Top Phrases: No. 1 Anger and Rage, No. 2 Climate Change, No. 3 The Great Recession
Top Names: No. 1 Hu Jintao, paramount leader of China, No. 2 iPad, No. 3 Barack Obama
2009:
Top Words: No. 1 Twitter, No. 2 Obama-, No. 3 H1N1
Top Phrases: No. 1 King of Pop, No. 2 Obama-mania, No. 3 Climate Change
Top Names: No. 1 Obama, No. 2 Michael Jackson, No. 3 Mobama
2008:
Top Words: No. 1 Change, No. 2 Bailout, No. 3 Obama-mania
Top Phrases: No. 1 Financial Tsunami, No. 2 Global Warming, No. 3 “Yes, We Can!”
Top Names: No. 1 Barack Obama, No. 2 George W. Bush, No.3 Michael Phelps
2007:
Top Words: No. 1 Hybrid (representing all things green), No. 2: Surge
Top Phrase: Climate Change
Top Name: Al Gore
2006:
Top Word: Sustainable
Top Phrase: Stay the Course
Top Name: Dafur
2005:
Top Words: No. 1, Refugee No. 2: Tsunami No. 3: Katrina
Top Phrase: Outside the Mainstream
Top Name: (acts of ) God
2004:
Top Word: Incivility (for inCivil War)
Top Phrase: Red States/Blue States No. 2: Rush to War
Top Name: Dubya/Rove
2003:
Top Word: Embedded
Top Phrase: Shock and Awe, No. 2: Rush to War
Top Name: Saddam Hussein, No. 2 Dubya
2002:
Top Word: Misunderestimate
Top Phrase: Threat Fatigue
Top Name: W (Dubya)
2001:
Top Word: Ground Zero
Top Phrase: ‘Lets Roll’
Top Name: The Heros
2000:
Top Word: Chad
Top Phrase: Dot.com
Top Name: W (Dubya)
About The Global Language Monitor
Austin-Texas-based Global Language Monitor analyzes and catalogues the latest trends in word usage and word choices and their impact on the various aspects of culture, with a particular emphasis upon Global English.
For more information, call 1.925.367.7557, email info@LanguageMonitor.com, or visit www.LanguageMonitor.com.
Subway, Red Bull and Sony among Top “Ambush Marketers” of London 2012 Olympics
Non-sponsors Ranking High on Brand Affiliation Index for London 2012
Austin, Texas, October 10, 2011. Subway, Red Bull and Sony are among the Top “Ambush Marketers” for the London 2012 Olympics.
The Ambush Marketing Rankings for London 2012 were released earlier today by The Global Language Monitor (GLM), the Internet and Media Trend Tracking Company. In the rankings, GLM measures the strength of the brand affiliation for each official Olympic sponsor as well as those of their primary competitors.
Among Worldwide Partners, Samsung, McDonald’s, Visa, Dow and P&G scored the highest on GLM’s Brand Affiliation Index (BAI) for London 2012.
Ambush Marketers can, and often do, out-perform official sponsors. “The term ambush marketing is well understood to mean that an organization knowingly exploits a brand affiliation with the Games — without the benefit of official sponsorship. However, all perceived Olympic sponsors according to their presence in the global media, and statistically linked to the London Games, qualify for the Ambush Index. GLM measures whatever perceived relationship exists between their organizations and London 2012”, “said Paul JJ Payack, president of the Austin, Texas based Global Language Monitor. ”In some cases the brand affiliation is due to successful current or past affiliations, such as that of Lenovo and the Games. Other times, it is because of clever (and legal) marketing efforts that exploit a company’s association with individual Olympians or sports in general, such as Subway ads with an Olympian who has come to symbolize the games themselves, or Red Bull securing naming rights to the Cycling venue.”
Among Worldwide Partners, the companies with the highest Brand Affiliation Index for London 2012 follow:
| Rank | Worldwide Partners | Highest BAI |
| 1. | Samsung | 66.15 |
| 2. | McDonald’s | 62.63 |
| 3. | Visa | 50.60 |
| 4. | Dow | 48.34 |
| 5. | P&G | 47.17 |
Leaders: Highest Brand Affiliation Index
As you can see, Samsung, McDonald’s and the others are tightly tied to the upcoming games.
Not all organizations are faring as well in the BAI. Here a few of the laggards in having their identities tied to London 2012.
| Rank | Worldwide Partners | Lowest BAI |
| 1. | Panasonic | 1.97 |
| 2. | ATOS | 7.81 |
| 3. | Omega | 8.95 |
Laggards: Lowest Brand Affiliation Index
Among some Worldwide Partners, non-sponsor Sony scores a far higher BAI than the Official Worldwide Partner, Panasonic. The same is true for Lenovo and Acer as well as Subway and McDonalds.
| Rank | Non-Sponsor | BAI Score | Sponsor | BAI Score |
| 1. | Sony | 280.75 | Panasonic | 1.97 |
| 2. | Lenovo | 101.00 | Acer | 33.81 |
| 3. | Subway | 145.90 | McDonald’s | 62.63 |
Non-sponsors with Higher BAI than Official Sponsors
Finally, the scores of all organizations are indexed against each other, to better understand the relative Brand Equity rankings of Sponsor vs. Non-sponsor.
So non-sponsor Nike has 13X more brand equity associated with London 2012 than the Official Partner, Adidas, while the Official Partner BA’s three main competitors combined have only a fraction of the associated brand equity associated compared to BA (.33 combined).
The Olympics are still ten months off, enough time for the laggards to improve their performance.
The Rankings will be released monthly up to and following London 2012. Complete information on the monthly Ambush Marketing Rankings for London 2012 Olympics can be delivered as a subscription. For Subscription information call 925.367.7557 or email pjjp@post.harvard.edu.
About Global Language Monitor
Founded in Silicon Valley, GLM collectively documents, analyzes and tracks trends worldwide, with a particular emphasis upon the English language. GLM employs proprietary ‘algorithmic methodologies’ such as the NarrativeTracker for global Internet and social media analysis. NarrativeTracker is based on global discourse, providing a real-time, accurate picture of what the public is saying about any topic, at any point in time. NarrativeTracker analyzes the Internet, blogosphere, the top 75,000 print and electronic global media media, as well as new social media sources.
Austin-based Global Language Monitor is the pioneer in web-based media analytics.
For more information, go to www.LanguageMonitor.com, call 1.925.367.7557, or email pjjp@post.harvard.edu.
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Eighth Annual Analysis of the Top Words from Television by the Global Language Monitor
Austin, Texas, September 20, 2011. The Global Language Monitor today announced that the ‘Royal Wedding’ of Kate Middleton and Prince William is the Top Television Word (or phrase) of the 2011 season. ‘Royal Wedding’ topped Charlie Sheen’s self-descriptive ‘Winner’ for the Top Spot. ‘Arab Spring’, ‘X-Factor’, and ‘Oprah’ rounded out the Top Five. ‘Fukashima,’ ’9/11′, ‘Obama-vision’, ’Chicago-style pols’ and ‘Zombies’ completed the Top Ten. Surprisingly the drama surrounding the killing of Osama bin Laden by Navy Seal Team 6 did not break into the No. 10.
“This apparently is shaping up to be the Year of Kate (Middleton). She has come to dominate the small screen through her engagement, her fashion choices and most of all her Royal Wedding,” said Paul JJ Payack, President and Chief Word Analyst of the Global Language Monitor. “Aside from the princess, this is the first time that ‘news’ has dominated the Top TeleWords of any given year. There are those who maintain that the pace of events is accelerating — and it does appear that social media is playing an ever-expanding role in that process.”
The awards are annually announced at the beginning of the fall television season in the US, traditionally opened with the 63rd Annual Emmy Awards. (Sunday, September 18th, 8:00 p.m. ET). This is the eighth annual analysis by the Austin-based Global Language Monitor.
The Top Telewords of the 2011 season with commentary follow:
1. Royal Wedding (Kate) — Kate reigns once more, this time on the small screen.
2. Winner (Charlie Sheen) – Winner, Tiger blood, goddesses … Fukashima was not the only meltdown on the world stage this year.
3. Arab Spring — The rolling unrest in the Middle East to some extent fueled by social media, such as Facebook and Twitter.
4. X-factor — In algebra, X is the unknown quantity or variable. In TV lingo it stands for Simon Cowell’s empire of dozens of X-factor shows around the globe.
5. Oprah – A name without precedent (or predecessor) rising to prominence because of Winfrey’s season-long farewell tour.
6. Fukashima – The epicenter for the Japanese Triple Disaster (tsunami, earthquake and nuclear meltdown).
7. 9/11 – The recent 10th year commemoration reminds that it is one of the handful of historical events whose date will actually ‘live in infamy’.
8. Obama-vision – The president’s appearances have turned increasingly more prosaic in the third year of his presidency.
9. Chicago-style politics (The Good Wife) – Rahm Emanuel vies with the Good Wife for the better rendition of a Chicago Pol’s life.
10. Zombies (The Walking Dead) – Continue to infect the world through dozens of shows on the small screen.
The Top Telewords of previous years:
2010 – SpillCam from the Gulf Oil Spill, followed by Guido (Jersey Shore) and Reality (TV)
2009 – ObamaVision — All Obama, all the time, everywhere, followed by Financial Meltdown and the death of Michael Jackson.
2008: Beijing (from the Olympics), ObamaSpeak, followed by ‘facts are stubborn things’, ‘it is what it is,’ and Phelpsian.
2007: “Surge” from the Iraq War political and military strategy, “That’s Hot®” Paris Hilton’s popular expression that is now a registered trademark, and “D’oh!” from The Simpsons and The Simpsons Movie.
2006: ‘Truthiness’ and ‘Wikiality’ from the Colbert Show followed by ‘Katrina’, ‘Katie,’ and ‘Dr. McDreamy’.
2005: ‘Refugee’ from the coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, followed by ‘Desperation’ from Desperate Housewives and ‘Camp Cupcake’ from the on-going Martha Stewart follies.
2004: “You’re Fired!” edged “Mess O’ Potamia” followed by “Girlie Men,” “God,” and “Wardrobe Malfunction”.
Time Newsfeed: TV talk: royal wedding
According to the Global Language Monitor, royal wedding was the “top TV word” of the year. The second-place finisher was winner (courtesy of Charlie Sheen’s uber-public meltdown), and the third was Arab Spring, referring to the uprisings and revolutions that have taken place throughout the Arab world in recent months. At least something substantive made it onto the podium (particularly given that the fourth place finisher was X-Factor, as in the Simon Cowell show, and the fifth was—god love ‘er—Oprah).
Each word counts: The Global Language Monitor also produces an estimate of words in the English language. The number they came up with this year was 1,010,649.7 (the 7/10 of a word presumably counting a phrase a drunk person almost coined). Incidentally, according to their estimate, the number of words in our language is roughly 14% the amount of dollars Warren Buffett paid in federal taxes last year. Mega-rich, indeed.
Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/09/21/wednesday-words-the-buffett-tax-moustache-vocab-and-more/#ixzz1YchByMgg
A handful of clever marketers are ahead of official Olympic sponsors
By Toni Fitzgerald, Media Life Magazine,
Sometimes perception is better than reality, and so it is for the brands that have managed to associate themselves with the Olympic Games without paying the exorbitant rights fees that come with official sponsorship.
They’re commonly referred to as “ambush marketers”, and though the London Games are still nearly a year away, some ambush marketers are making more of an impression on Olympic fans than the official sponsors.
That’s according to the first ambush marketing rankings for the London 2012 Olympic Games, released by The Global Language Monitor (GLM), which measures the strength of the brand affiliation between each of the worldwide partners, official partners, and official sponsors and the London Games and then compares it to competing companies that are not officially affiliated with the Games
Sony, Subway, DuPont, Barclay Card and Lenovo are the top five companies with the highest unofficial London brand affiliation.
All have a stronger association with the Games than the official sponsors they compete against.
They’ve achieved this by incorporating Olympic imagery into their ads, such as athletes competing in the sports being contested in London.
Though some object to the term “ambush”, it’s clear that their intention is to gain the positive affiliation with the Games without paying the sponsorship fees, which cost in the nine-figure range for top-level sponsorship.
“Few things in top-tier consumer-facing companies occur ‘naturally’ or ‘spontaneously,’ especially when they are engineered to look that way,” says Paul JJ Payack, president of GLM.
“This is why advertisers adept at associating themselves with an event, even though they are not ‘official’ sponsors of that event, can often out-perform official sponsors.”
Subway, for instance, is roughly two times as likely as official Olympics sponsor McDonald’s to be associated with the Games.
That’s mainly because swimmer Michael Phelps, the most decorated Summer Olympian ever, appears in Subway ads.
“Subway is acknowledged as a leader in this regard [ambush marketing] with their close ties to Michael Phelps, who in many minds personifies the Olympic brand and spirit: clean-living, hard-work, pulling himself up by his own bootstraps,” says Payack.
Some sponsors are still reaping the benefits of past sponsorship. Lenovo, for example, ended its sponsorship deal after the 2008 Beijing Games, but the company is three times as likely as the computer vendor that took its place, Acer, to be associated with the Olympics.
The benefit to these ambush marketers is clear.
They get all of the positives of Olympic sponsorship – the feel-good vibes, the legitimacy, the eyeballs – at a much lower expense.
The International Olympic Committee is not happy about this, of course.
During last year’s Vancouver Games, it successfully lobbied the Canadian Parliament to pass a bill restricting the use of certain combinations of words and numbers in advertising, such as snow, winter and games, to prevent non-sponsors from piggybacking on the Games.
Still, clever advertisers always find a way around that.
Red Bull, which consistently ranks near the top of the ambush list, recently bought naming rights to the new velodrome in London that will house the indoor bicycle events, ensuring the brand name will be heard in broadcasts even if its ads will not.
Attention: Any part of article may be used as a quote, or as a story or a segment within a larger story.
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By Paul JJ Payack
AUSTIN, Texas. September 11, 2011. For the decade, The Global Language Monitor, and its predecessors have been keeping track of the manner in which the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 have changed the way Americans Talk. We have updated our findings several times since, as the language has evolved with the ensuing events of the decade, most tragic (Iraq, 7/7, Afghanistan, the Global Economic Restructuring), others seemingly beyond surreal (the Southeast Asian Tsunami, the inundation of New Orleans) a welcome few comforting.
Aftermath by Paul JJ Payack
We have found subtle yet profound differences in our everyday speech since that day when terrorist attacks unfolded on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the pending targets in Washington, D.C., widely suspected to be the White House or the Capitol Building. The changes we have tracked include the way Americans speak in terms of subject matter, vernacular, word choice and tone.
9/11
The first case is the use of 9/11, itself, as a shorthand for the 2001 terrorist attacks. Using various web metrics, 9/11 outpaces any other name, including the spelled out ‘September 11th” by 7:1 margin. This designation, in itself, is quite interesting. It is true that Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed the Pearl Harbor attack as “December 7th, 1941 as a day which will live in infamy”. But there were no “12/7″ rallying cries thereafter. Neither were the dates immortalized of the original battles of the Korean War, the Gulf of Tonkin Incident which preceded the major escalation of the Vietnam War, the Persian Gulf War, the siege of Afghanistan siege, or the invasion of Iraq. Only the 7/7 attacks on the London transportation system are recorded in common memory by their date (and primarily in the UK). .
Ground Zero
The name Ground Zero now evokes a sacred place, where the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers once stood. It is also revered as a burial ground since thousands of bodies literally vaporized in the ensuing collapse with no remains found whatsoever.
Almost universally, it is capitalized as any other proper name, with a few exceptions, most notably the New York Times (and later legitimized in the AP Style Guide).
In fact, the Times continues to insist on referring to Ground Zero in the lower case, calling it, for example, ‘the area known as ground zero’. Admittedly, ground zero also refers to the epicenter of a nuclear blast. In the minds of this generation, this is a close as they have ever gotten to such an event (or ever expect to).
Names are officially bestowed in a number of ways, most often by bureaucratic committees following arcane sets of rules, answering to few. In this case, we kindly request those nameless bureaucrats to follow the lead of hundreds of millions around the world who have formally bestowed upon that special place, the formal name: Ground Zero.
The 9/11 Collage Narrative that includes all the Art $9.97
Heroes
In mythology, heroes were men and women often of divine ancestry endowed with the gifts of courage and strength. In reality, everyday heroes of the late 20th and early 21st centuries were sports figures (‘Be like Mike’ and ‘Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio’), comic book and cartoon characters ala
Superman and Spiderman, and all too frequently ‘anti-heroes’ known for the colossal damage they might inflict upon a helpless (and often hapless) world.
Into this tableaux, came the heroes of 9/11, very real men and women, rushing into and up the Towers as everyone else was rushing down and out; rushing the cockpit of Flight 93, with plastic knives and forks and hot coffee, forcing the startled highjackers to abandon their plans of crashing into the Capitol or White House rather than the previously unheralded soil of Swanksville, PA; and the men and women who quietly stood their posts at the Pentagon, just doing their duty, not knowing if they would be subjected to another horrific, and more deadly, attack at any moment.
Jericho Sounding by Paul JJ Payack
In the post-9/11 world, the term has now come to apply to any who place their lives in danger to foster the common good, especially ‘first-responders’ such as: firefighters, EMTs, and police, who quietly place their lives on the line every day.
Another historic change is the treatment of American soldiers with the respect they have been unaccustomed to since the days of the Vietnam War. The public has evidently been able to separate the politics of the wars from the all-too-human participants.
-stan
The suffix in Persian and related languages that means, literally, ‘land of,’ hence, Afghanistan or Land of the Afghans, or Kurdistan (or Kurdish Territories), or even this relatively new moniker: Londonistan. Talibanistan, referring to Afghanistan and the ‘tribal lands’ in Pakistan. The suffix has been appropriated in various, often humorous, ways such as the famous New Yorker cover that referred to the various ‘-stans’ one encounters in post-Modern life.
The Demarcation of Time
The date 9/11 now has a special place as a time marker or time stamp; we now frequently delineate time periods as either pre-9/11 or post 9/11.
The unCivil (or inCivil) War
Since 9/11, the political discourse of American politics has, arguably, descended to its lowest level since the Civil-War era when Lincoln was typically depicted as a know-nothing, Bible-spouting Baboon. Even speech of the Watergate era was spared the hyperbole commonly heard today, as respect for the institution of the presidency remained high, even though the President was widely disdained.
Today, political opponents are routinely called ‘liars,’ are typically compared to Hitler, Nazis and Fascists by those who evidently know little of either history or political theory.
When tragedies do occur (the inundation of New Orleans, the Gulf Oil Spill, the Global Economic Restructuring), no opportunities are overlooked to demonize the sitting president by the ‘loyal’ opposition. And the vitriol has steadily increased throughout the decade as measured by various longitudinal indices of GLM. In fact, much of the frustration with President Obama now associated with liberals and progressives has been trending upward since his inauguration, though it was overlooked by the conventional media and polling organizations because traditional polling and information gathering often finds itself at a disadvantage when compared to Internet and social-media based trend-tracking organizations.
It is very difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of this debasement of political speech and rhetoric, but it has been suggested that in the face of a nearly invisible, constantly morphing, enemy, we have turned the attack inward, upon ourselves, and our institutions.
Apocalyptic-type Terminology
In an exclusive of the worldwide media, GLM has also found a decided rise in apocalyptic-type terminology in the description of tragedies but even with events of inconvenience (such as Washington’s Snowmageddon of last winter or the recent Carpocalypse in Los Angeles). After all it does snow in Washington, D.C. every winter and freeways are frequently closed the world over for repairs.
Vanquished & Vanished by Paul JJ Payack
This trend town alarming references include: Biblical, Hiroshima-type references, Catastrophe, Holocaust, Apocalypse, decimation, and End-of-the-World scenarios. These alarmist references are recorded across the full spectrum of print and electronic media. It appears as if the world is stunned the string of early 21st catastrophes. (By the way, the world still has to deal with the so-called end of the Mayan calendar extinction event that is scheduled to occur on December 22nd of next year.)
The global media appear mesmerized by the constant bombardment of television images of apparently rampaging, out-of-control elements, such as
the truly catastrophic combination of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown in Japan, where authorities encounter vast difficulties in keeping their own people fed, sheltered, evacuated, and, even, from dying on the street.
During the inundation of New Orleans, the Sunday Times (London) stated, “Devastation that could send an area the size of England back to the Stone Age”. The story continues, “AMERICA comes to an end in Montgomery, Alabama … it has been replaced by a dangerous and paranoid post-apocalyptic landscape, short of all the things fuel, phones, water and electricity needed to keep the 21st century switched on. By the time you reach Waveland, Mississippi, the coastal town of 6,800 where corpses lie amid a scene of Biblical devastation, any semblance of modern society has gone. “
Everyday language changes with 9/11
Some ten years on, we now speak of terror levels (since obsoleted), duct tape, Homeland Security, Full-body scanners, shoe-bombs and shoe-bombers, the Freedom Tower (since renamed), Shanksville, the Ground Zero Mosque, Imans, drones, high-value targets, Ramadan, Burquas, face veils, Sharia Law, and scores of other 9/11-related terms that now inhabit the English Linguasphere.
Harvard Returns to the top, beating Northwestern and Berkeley
But Big Ten Beats Ivies: 8-6 in the Top 50
Williams Tops Richmond as No.1 in the College Category
Austin, Texas, September 3 – After four tries, Harvard returned to the top ranking of American universities by Internet Media Buzz, edging out a strong challenge by Northwestern. The University of California, Berkeley, Columbia, Caltech, and MIT – all finishing within 1% of each other – took the No. 3 through No. 6 positions. Stanford returned to the Top Ten at No. 7, followed by the ever-strong Chicago, the University of Texas, and Cornell.
Memorial Church, Harvard
Following were Michigan, the University of Washington, Penn State, Yale, and Wisconsin. Rounding out the Top Twenty were Princeton, Penn, UCLA, Cal Davis, and Georgia Tech.
“The TrendTopper MediaBuzz Rankings measure an institution’s perceived value using the same methodologies used to compare any other products of value, such as BMW vs. Mercedes,” said Paul JJ Payack, the president of Global Language Monitor. “GLM’s TrendTopper MediaBuzz Rankings removes all bias inherent in each of the other published rankings, since they actually reflect what is being said and stated on the billions of web pages that we measure.”
See where your school (or prospective schools) ranks: Click below to download your 2012 Guide for $19.97.
In a remarkable demonstration of the growing influence of the Public Ivies, some fourteen of the Top Thirty schools are public institutions, and now include eight Big Ten schools, six from the Ivy League (Brown and Dartmouth were the exceptions), three Technological Institutes – and four from California’s fabled University system.
Overall, the University of California system, as a whole continues to dwarf all other academic associations, leagues and conferences. This is a fine tribute to a system that has had to endure a continued series of budget cuts and cutbacks.
The words, phrases and concepts are tracked in relation to their frequency, contextual usage and appearance in global media outlets. This exclusive ranking is based upon GLM’s Narrative Tracking technology. NarrativeTracker analyzes the Internet, blogosphere, the 75,000 print and electronic media, as well as new social media sources (such as Twitter).
Big Ten Conference
The Top 25 Universities by Internet Media Buzz
Rank/University/Last/Comment
1. Harvard University (3) – Dr. Faust sets things aright and Harvard again assumes the No. 1 spot in the survey.
2. Northwestern University (31) – Catapults to No.2 while leading the Big Ten charge up the rankings.
3. University of California, Berkeley (8) – Cal considers itself THE University of California and the rankings back this up.
4. Columbia University (5) – Columbia has never finished out of the Top 10 in the TrendTopper rankings.
5. California Institute of Technology (19) – CalTech nips its East Coast competitor for top tech honors.
6. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (4) – The former ‘Boston Tech’ rejected Harvard’s repeated entreaties to merge in the late 19th century.
7. Stanford University (11) – The former ‘Harvard of the West’ has long emerged from Cantabrigia’s fabled shadow.
8. University of Chicago (2) – Dropped out of the Big Ten in the late 1930s; loss of big-time football doesn’t seem to have hurt their rankings.
9. University of Texas, Austin (10) – It new branding, “What starts here, changes the world’ is more than a slogan.
10. Cornell University (7) – Few know that the Ivy titan is also a Land Grant institution.
11. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (6) – Took top honors twice in previous surveys.
12. University of Washington (17) – U Dub, as it is affectionately known, is the emerging powerhouse of the Northwest.
13. Pennsylvania State University (24) — Penn State’s new identity campaign has evidently been quite successful.
14. Yale University (9) – Vassar declined an invitation to merge with Yale in 1966.
15. University of Wisconsin, Madison (1) – Had a very strong global media run during the previous cycle.
16. Princeton University (12) – The First Lady’s Alma Mater was originally known as the College of New Jersey.
17. University of Pennsylvania (22) – The Wharton School greatly strengthens Penn’s brand equity.
18. University of California, Los Angeles (16) – Tops in LaLa Land, though USC is making great strides forward.
19. University of California, Davis (13) – Originally established as the agricultural extension of UC Berkeley known as the University Farm.
20. Georgia Institute of Technology (27) – The Yellow Jackets ramble into the Top 20.
21. Georgetown University (14) – Once again, the Top Catholic University in the land.
22. New York University (18) – Growing global ambitions reflected in the global media.
23. Indiana University, Bloomington (46) – Steadily gaining in prestige and the rankings reflect it.
24. Boston College (39) – A generation ago, the Flutie Effect launched the school on its present stellar trajectory.
25. University of California, San Diego (23) – UCSD receives about a billion dollars a year in research grants.
The Top 25 Colleges by TrendTopper MediaBuzz
The College category also produced a new No. 1, Williams College of Massachusetts as a strong No. 1 in the College Division. (Little Three companion schools Amherst and Wesleyan claimed the No. 7 and thirteen spots, respectively.)
Williams is the fifth different college to take the top spot since these rankings began, which now have been represented by the South (Davidson), the West (Colorado College), the East (Wellesley College) and the Midwest (Carleton College). Wellesley was also the only Women’s College to top a general college ranking.
See where your school (or prospective schools) ranks: Click below to download your 2012 Guide for $19.97.
In another first, three of the Claremont Colleges finished in the Top Ten: No. 4 Claremont McKenna, No. 5 Harvey Mudd, and No. 6 Pomona. In addition, another Claremont College, Scripps — the Women’s College, finished at No. 18.
The Top 25 Colleges by TrendTopper MediaBuzz
Rank / Colleges Fall 2011
Williams College Museum
1. Williams College – The Ephs (or is it Blue Cows?) set the standard, once again, however a first in Internet MediaBuzz..
2. University of Richmond — Richmond looking stronger and stronger in the classroom, the athletic field and the media.
3. Union College – A sometimes overlooked gem of a school making strides in the Internet age.
4. Claremont McKenna College – CMC marks the beginning of the Claremont Colleges surge.
5. Harvey Mudd College – One of the top technical schools in the nation finally getting it due.
6. Pomona College – Perhaps the most akin to Williams on the list (minus the SoCal climate and beaches).
7. Wesleyan University – Firmly wedged between Williams and Amherst, as is its usual fate.
8. The Juilliard School – A school that truly deserves to be in the nation’s Top Ten, though it is often relegated to ‘Unranked’ or ‘Other’ categories.
9. Carleton College – A past No.1 that continues to gain in global reputation.
10. Bates College – With Colby and Bowdoin, one of the three little Ivies from the state of Maine.
11. Pratt Institute – Pratt’s mission is to educate artists and creative professionals and, indeed, that is what it does.
12. Amherst College – Always lurking near the top of the Liberal Arts College rankings.
13. Wellesley College – The only Woman’s College to achieve No. 1 in any comprehensive national rankings.
14. Bryn Mawr College – Katy Hepburn would be proud of how the little school has come of age (125th anniversary).
15. Middlebury College – Such a large global footprint for such a small school.
16. Bowdoin College – Used to boast of being the first US college to witness the sunrise.
17. Smith College – The women’s school of the Five Colleges Consortium around Amherst, Massachusetts.
18. Scripps College – Yet another of the Claremont Colleges to emerge into the top ranks.
19. Bucknell University – Bucknell is the largest private Liberal Arts college in the nation and its outsized reputation is beginning to reflect this fact.
20. Oberlin College – From the Arb to the Arch the college holds many firsts in American academic history, such as the first co-ed college to graduate a woman.
21. Colorado College – CC, of Block Plan fame, was the first No. 1 west of the Mississippi.
22. School of the Art Institute of Chicago – SAIC deserves to be in the top reaches of any serious collegiate ranking.
23. Babson College – Specialized in entrepreneurship before entrepreneurship was cool.
24. United States Military Academy – Army and Navy were considered part of the traditional Ivy League a century before the Ivy Group sports conference was formed.
25. United States Air Force Academy – Service Academies are amazingly unranked by US News and others
The Top Specialty Schools.
Top Engineering Schools: CalTech, MIT, Georgia Tech (College: Harvey Mudd)
Top Online/For Profit Schools: the University of Phoenix.
Top Business School: Babson College
Top Christian School: Wheaton College, IL
Top Military Academy: United States Military Academy
Top Multi-disciplinary Art & Design School: Pratt Institute
Top School of Art: School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC)
Top Music School: the Julliard School
Top Catholic University: Georgetown University
Top Catholic College: College of the Holy Cross
See where your school (or prospective schools) ranks: Click below to download your 2012 Guide for $19.97.
The Global Language Monitor publishes the TrendTopper Media Buzz College and University Rankings, twice a year, with spring and fall editions. Many institutions of higher education, including Wisconsin, Harvard, Boston College, and Vanderbilt have used the rankings as a validation of their recent reputation management decisions.
About The Global Language Monitor
Austin-Texas-based Global Language Monitor analyzes and catalogues the latest trends in word usage and word choices, and their impact on the various aspects of culture, with a particular emphasis upon Global English. Since 2003, GLM has launched a number of innovative products and services monitoring the Internet, the Blogosphere, Social Media as well as the Top 75,000 print and electronic media sites.
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August 21, 2011 NEW YORK and AUSTIN, Texas. London has overtaken New York City as the Top Global Fashion Capital for 2011, the Global Language Monitor, announced today. London and New York were followed by Paris, Milano, Los Angeles, and Hong Kong. Barcelona, Singapore, Tokyo and Berlin rounded out the top ten. New York had reclaimed the crown from Milan last year. Previous to this, New York had been the top fashion capital for five years running. Berlin and Singapore broke into the Top Ten for the first time.
“We are seeing what the impact of two genuine media stars, Princess Kate and Alexander McQueen can have upon a global ranking. Our numbers show that it was their presence that tipped the victory to London over New York,” said Bekka Payack, the Manhattan-based fashion correspondent of the Global Language Monitor. “In the various categories, London took top honors in three, while New York, Paris, and Sao Paulo each topped the field in one.”
Buy Fashion Capitals items here
The list was expanded to fifty cities to recognize the growth of regional capitals with their distinctive styles and contributions to the fashion industry. Top Movers on the plus side included Bali (+11), Rome (+9), Berlin (+8), Mexico City (+8), and Singapore (+7). Top movers on the down side include Cape Town (-23), Prague (-22), and Miami (-19) and Jo-burg (-16), attesting to the heightened competition.
This exclusive ranking is based upon GLM’s Narrative Tracking technology. NarrativeTracker analyzes the Internet, blogosphere, the 75,000 print and electronic media, as well as new social media sources (such as Twitter).
The words, phrases and concepts are tracked in relation to their frequency, contextual usage and appearance in global media outlets.
This exclusive ranking is based upon GLM’s Narrative Tracking technology. NarrativeTracker analyzes the Internet, blogosphere, the 75,000 print and electronic media, as well as new social media sources (such as Twitter). The words, phrases and concepts are tracked in relation to their frequency, contextual usage and appearance in global media outlets.
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The Top Global Fashion Capitals for 2011, change from previous ranking, and commentary follow.
Image courtesy of FashionFoieGras.com
2011 Ranking, City, Previous ranking, and Comment
– More than just swim- and leisure-wear town.
Global Language Monitor Fashion Capitals from the Wikipedia
Top Fashion Capitals by Region:
Europe (12): London, Paris, Milan, Barcelona, Berlin, Madrid, Rome, Monaco, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Florence.
Middle and Eastern Europe (5): Moscow, Warsaw, Vienna, Krakow, Prague.
North America (11): New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami, Toronto, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, Austin, Atlanta, Montreal.
Asia (5): Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Shanghai, Bangkok,
Subcontinent (2): Mumbai, New Delhi,
Oceania (3): Sydney, Melbourne, Bali.
Latin America (6): Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Santiago, Caracas.
Middle East and Africa (4): Dubai, Johannesburg, Abu Dhabi, Cape Town,
The world ‘rag’ business is estimated to be over three trillion USD.
AUSTIN, Texas, August 9, 2011. Words have power. Names have power. Three years ago we spoke to Newsweek about what should the then-current/still-current economic crisis be named. The ‘Great Recession’ was favored by the New York Times and eventually ‘certified’ by the AP Style Guide. The Global Language Monitor’s position was that the economic crisis of 2008 did not resemble a recession, as we had come to define recessions, and the resemblance to the Worldwide Economic Depression of the 1930s was tentative, at best.
GLM’s position was that we were experiencing was not a recession, neither great nor small, but something of a wholly differing sort: a Global Economic Restructuring.
Words have power. Names have power. In fact words and names can shape the contours of a debate. And, we might add, words and names carry the inherent capacity to lead us astray. Casting the current reality in the terms of those crises we’ve already experienced, provides the comfort (and illusion) that things are well in control.
It is about time that we admit that what we are experiencing is not a recession, neither great nor small, but rather a global transference of wealth, power and prestige on an unprecedented level, carried out, in von Clausewitz’s words “by other means”.
Originally alluded to as a “Financial Tsunami” or “Financial Meltdown,” the major global media seem to have gained a consensus on “The Great Recession”. In the beginning, most comparisons were being made to the Great Economic Depression of the 1930s, more familiarly known, simply, as “The Depression” in the same way that many still refer to World War II as “The War”. But even these comparisons frequently ended up referring to the recession of 1982, yet another so-called “Great Recession”.
Our recent analysis has shown that while the major print and electronic media have settled upon “Great Recession”, the rest of the Internet, blogosphere and social media world have largely eschewed the term. We believe the difficulty here stems from the fact that this economic crisis is difficult to express in words because it does not resemble any economic crisis in recent memory — but rather a crisis of another sort.
“On War” is one of the most influential books on military strategy of all time. Written by Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz (1780 – 1831), it recorded one of his most respected tenets, “War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means,” which is frequently abbreviated to “War is diplomacy carried out by other means’.
We believe that the reason the “Great Recession” label does not now fit, as has now become obvious, because what we are experiencing is not a recession, neither great nor small, but rather a global transference of wealth, power and prestige on an unprecedented level, carried out “by other means”. [Continued beneath the Graphic.]
This fact has entrapped two U.S. presidents, from radically diverging political viewpoints, in the same dilemma: describing an economic phenomenon, that doesn’t play by the old rules. Hence, the difficulty experienced by President Bush as he struggled to describe how the U.S. economy was not in a recession since the GDP had not declined for two consecutive quarters, the traditional definition of a recession, even though jobs were being shed by the millions and the global banking system teetered on the brink of collapse. Now we have President Obama, attempting to describe how the U.S. economy has emerged out of a recession, though the collateral damage in terms of the evaporation of wealth, mortgages, and jobs remains apparently undaunted and unabated.
And the world, from China to Germany, stands aghast as we continue to argue, in spite of all available evidence that debt is a good thing. “We all say so, so it must be true!” seems to be the all-too-familiar refrain from Washington.
The regional or global transfer of wealth, power and influence, the destruction of entire industries and the so-called collateral (or human) damage are all hallmarks of what is now being experienced in the West.
If one carefully disassembles the events of the last decade or two, you can see them as the almost inevitable conclusion of a nameless war that began with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the embrace of a form of the free-market system by China, India and the other rising states, an almost unprecedented transfer of wealth from the Western Economies to the Middle East (energy) and South and East Asia (manufactured goods and services), and the substantial transfer of political power and influence that inevitably follows.
It currently appears that the Western Powers most affected by these transfers cannot adequately explain, or even understand, their present circumstances in a way that makes sense to the citizenry, let alone actually reverse (or even impede) the course of history. In fact, the larger events are playing out while the affected societies seemingly default to the hope that they ultimately can exert some sort of control over a reality that appears to be both out of their grasp and control.
The good news here is that the transfers of wealth, power and influence has proven relatively bloodless but nonetheless destructive for the hundreds of millions of those on the front lines of the economic dislocations.
And it is in this context that the perceived resentment of the Islamic and Arab states should be more clearly viewed. This is especially so as they, too, watch helplessly as the new global reality and re-alignments unfold.
In conclusion, it can be argued that the reason the “Great Recession” label doesn’t seem to fit now is because what we are experiencing is not a recession, neither great nor small, but rather an on-going transformational event involving the global transfer of wealth, power and influence on an unprecedented level, carried out “by other means”.
By Paul JJ Payack and Edward ML Peters. Paul JJ Payack is president of Austin-based Global Language Monitor. Edward ML Peters is CEO of Dallas-based OpenConnect Systems. Their most recent book is “The Paid-for Option”, which describes how healthcare reform can actually pay for itself through the application of process intelligence and its attendant gains in productivity.
By Barry Ronge, The Times (Jo-burg, ZA). July 24, 2011 –
“The Global Language Monitor”, run by Paul JJ Payack, tracks the rise and fall of trend-words and phrases. Most of these fade rapidly when the fad that created them loses it’s social currency.
Have you recently heard anyone talking about Generation X? Probably not, because that social group has morphed into the social network, where they can “google” things, find friends on Facebook or start “poking” people on the internet.
These buzz words define the mood and style of the time, just as fashion houses and leisure industries do. Buzz words such as “disco mania”, “big hair”, “glitzy” and “high rollers” defined the excessive 1980s, just as “dropping out” and “peaceniks” are nostalgic souvenirs of the hippies and their flower-power revolution.
Mr Payack’s researchers collect these words and it goes without saying that the movies feature prominently. When a great title or a line of dialogue finds a life of its own, it becomes a pop-culture icon for the era.
For example, it has been 40 years since Clint Eastwood said: “Make my day!” and 39 years since Marlon Brando said: “Make him an offer he can’t refuse” – but both phrases are still current.
Payack’s team also came up with the term “wardrobe malfunction” when Janet Jackson gained unexpected exposure at the 2004 Super Bowl. The phrase was revived when Lady Gaga flashed a nipple in Sydney, Australia. It’s amazing how her elaborate costume seemed to vanish when a little pink nipple popped out and made a far bigger statement than the dress itself.
Now Payack’s team reveal their “8th Annual Global Survey of HollyWords of 2010″, a list of the current words and phrases that resonated through the movie scene.
The most frequently-used “HollyWord” of last year is “grit”, obviously related to the success of the re-make of True Grit. The film picked up a raft of nominations but ended up with just one award. Nonetheless, Payack’s team found “grit” cropping up in many reviews and features.
Webster’s Dictionary defines “grit” as “pluck, courage, perseverance and an indomitable spirit”.
The words “grit” and “gritty” featured prominently in hundreds of reviews and interviews about True Grit, in which Jeff Bridges and Hailee Steinfeld displayed enormous toughness and tenacity. They brought “grit” back into currency.
“Grit” also migrated into reviews and discussions of The Fighter, a boxing drama based in a working-class area that was constantly described as “gritty”, as was James Franco’s harrowing mountaineering ordeal in 127 Hours. The Oscar-winner The King’s Speech looked beyond the pomp and circumstance and found remarkable “grit” in a king of England. Even Toy Story 3, a tale of abandoned toys trying to avoid being turned into garbage, were praised for their “grit”, courage and loyalty. [Read More.]
San Francisco. July 24, 2011 – We first saw the story, 15 Wonderful Words With No English Equivalent, on the MentalFloss outlet (a genuinely interesting site for esoterica lovers), compiled by Bill DeMain. His attribution states that “many of the words above can be found in BBC researcher Adam Jacot de Boinod’s book ‘The Meaning of Tingo and Other Extraordinary Words from Around the World.”
In the last few days we have tracked it thousands of times around the English speaking world, which now happens to encompass the globe. We are intrigued by the idea that there, indeed, might be no equivalent English words or phrases for these terms.
After all there are as of today, July 24th, 2011 the Global language Monitor calculates that there are approximately 1,010,649.7 words in the English language. (The language gains a new word every ninety-eight minutes, hence the, we admit, totally extraneous decimal point.)
So here’s the challenge to lovers of the language. Do these 15 Wonderful Words Actually Have No English Equivalent?
Send us your suggestions to: 15WonderfulWords@LanguageMonitor.com, and we will publish what our readers come up with.
Here’s the list original story:
The Global Language Monitor estimates that there are currently 1,009,753 words in the English language. Despite this large lexicon, many nuances of human experience still leave us tongue-tied. And that’s why sometimes it’s necessary to turn to other languages to find le mot juste. Here are fifteen foreign words with no direct English equivalent.
1. Zhaghzhagh (Persian)
The chattering of teeth from the cold or from rage.
2. Yuputka (Ulwa)
A word made for walking in the woods at night, it’s the phantom sensation of something crawling on your skin.
3. Slampadato (Italian)
Addicted to the infra-red glow of tanning salons? This word describes you.
4. Luftmensch (Yiddish)
There are several Yiddish words to describe social misfits. This one is for an impractical dreamer with no business sense. Literally, air person.
5. Iktsuarpok (Inuit)
You know that feeling of anticipation when you’re waiting for someone to show up at your house and you keep going outside to see if they’re there yet? This is the word for it.
6. Cotisuelto (Caribbean Spanish)
A word that would aptly describe the prevailing fashion trend among American men under 40, it means one who wears the shirt tail outside of his trousers.
7. Pana Po’o (Hawaiian)
“Hmm, now where did I leave those keys?” he said, pana po’oing. It means to scratch your head in order to help you remember something you’ve forgotten.
8. Gumusservi (Turkish)
Meteorologists can be poets in Turkey with words like this at their disposal. It means moonlight shining on water.
9. Vybafnout (Czech)
A word tailor-made for annoying older brothers—it means to jump out and say boo.
10. Mencolek (Indonesian)
You know that old trick where you tap someone lightly on the opposite shoulder from behind to fool them? The Indonesians have a word for it.
11. Faamiti (Samoan)
To make a squeaking sound by sucking air past the lips in order to gain the attention of a dog or child.
12. Glas wen (Welsh)
A smile that is insincere or mocking. Literally, a blue smile.
13. Bakku-shan (Japanese)
The experience of seeing a woman who appears pretty from behind but not from the front.
14. Boketto (Japanese)
It’s nice to know that the Japanese think enough of the act of gazing vacantly into the distance without thinking to give it a name.
15. Kummerspeck (German)
Excess weight gained from emotional overeating. Literally, grief bacon.
Remember to send us your suggestions for English-language equivalents to: 15WonderfulWords@LanguageMonitor.com or info@LanguageMonitor.com.
The number of words in the English language is : 1,010,649.7. This is the estimate by the Global Language Monitor on January 1, 2012.
The English Language passed the Million Word threshold on June 10, 2009 at 10:22 a.m. (GMT). The Millionth Word was the controversial ‘Web 2.0′. Currently there is a new word created every 98 minutes or about 14.7 words per day.
Google Validates GLM’s No. of Words in English Prediction
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Though GLM’s analysis was the subject of much controversy at the time, the recent Google/Harvard Study of the Current Number of Words in the English Language is 1,022,000. The above graphic is from the AAAS /Science as reported on NPR. At the time the New York Times article on the historic threshold famously quoted several dissenting linguists as claiming that “even Google could not come up with” such a methodology. Unbeknownst to them Google was doing precisely that.
The number of words in the English language according to GLM now stands at: 1,010,649.7. The difference between the two analyses is .0121%, which is widely considered statistically insignificant.
Google’s number, which is based on the counting of the words in the 15,000,000 English language books it has scanned into the ‘Google Corpus,’ mirrors GLM’s Analysis. GLM’s number is based upon its algorithmic methodologies, explication of which is available from its site.
.San Francisco. July 22, 2011. Haboobs, those dust storms invading the Southwestern United States these days, might be called as American as Apple Pie — or at least as English as fish and chips. The word, according to an analysis by the Global Language Monitor conducted earlier this week, is actually considered an English-language word, found in unabridged dictionaries, hundreds of thousands of times on the Internet, and hundreds of times in the print media and scholarly works as least as far back as the 19th century.
When Arizona-based weather forecasters used ‘haboob’ to describe the fierce wind- and dust-storms their were immediate calls to stop use of that term since it is of Arabic in origin, and might be insulting to American and NATO forces stationed in Arabic-speaking lands.
“If you find that the word ‘haboob’ is inappropriate because of its Arabic origin, then you better start thinking about:
alcohol,
algebra,
chemistry,
guitar,
zero,
and the hundreds of other words of Arabic origin that are members in excellent standing in contemporary English, said Paul JJ Payack, President and Chief Word Analyst of GLM.
“The English language has thousands upon thousands of words that it has ‘borrowed’ from hundreds of languages over its fourteen hundred year lifespan. Unfortunately, once English ensnares one these ‘loan’ words, they seldom ever escape”.
In this free-wheeling era, when the English language is often applied with little supervision, it’s common for purists to complain about the abuse of words.
For instance, I dislike it when things are indicated instead of said. And impact gets rough treatment, as it’s transmogrified into a Franken-adjective (impactful) and is too often made to serve as a substitute for affect — probably by people who are unsure whether to use that word or effect.
And there should be a petition to remove the word literally from use, for at least a lengthy rehabilitation and perhaps a permanent retirement.
But I was surprised to learn that in 19th-century Britain, readers viewed words like lengthy and reliable as signs of the coming apocalypse. It turns out that those words, along with talented andtremendous, were imports from America.
As Matthew Engel writes at the BBC, “The poet Coleridge denounced ‘talented’ as a barbarous word in 1832, though a few years later it was being used by William Gladstone. A letter-writer to the Times, in 1857, described ‘reliable’ as vile.” [Read More]
By Matthew Engel I have had a lengthy career in journalism. I hope that’s because editors have found me reliable. I have worked with many talented colleagues. Sometimes I get invited to parties and meet influential people. Overall, I’ve had a tremendous time.
Lengthy. Reliable. Talented. Influential. Tremendous.
All of these words we use without a second thought were never part of the English language until the establishment of the United States.
The Americans imported English wholesale, forged it to meet their own needs, then exported their own words back across the Atlantic to be incorporated in the way we speak over here. Those seemingly innocuous words caused fury at the time.
The poet Coleridge denounced “talented” as a barbarous word in 1832, though a few years later it was being used by William Gladstone. A letter-writer to the Times, in 1857, described “reliable” as vile.
As Summer Blockbuster Season Peaks, a Look Back at the Top Hollywords from 2010
8th Annual Global Survey by the Global Language Monitor
Austin, Texas. July 12, 2011. As summer blockbuster season peaks, a look back at the top words from the movies that influenced the English language from 2010.
For the first time a single word representative of a number of the year’s blockbusters, Grit, tops the list of Hollywords as named by the Global Language Monitor. Grit topped arrogance, abdicate, stammer, and madness. Dream-stealers, nerds, Borogoves, shard, and 3-D rounded out the top ten.
“For the first time a single word was representative of a number of the year’s Oscar winning films,” said Paul JJ Payack, president and chief word analyst for the Global Language Monitor, “According to Webster’s the term, grit, has the following senses that applied to these films: firmness, pluck, gritty (as in soot-covered), stubborn, indomitable spirit, courageous, and brave perseverance.”
The Top Hollywords of the 2010 season with the largest impact on the English language with commentary follow.
1. The word grit has been defined in a number of ways by Webster that reflects many of the virtues of this year’s nominees.
2. Arrogance – Deftly depicted in both The Social Network and Inside Job.
3. Abdicate – Another generation learns of cowardice in high places, again; this time it’s found in the British Royal Family as depicted in The King’s Speech.
4. Stammer and/or Stutter – If you paid close attention you might actually notice the difference between a stammer and a stutter in Colin Firth’s dialogue.
5. Madness – We are told there is no such thing as ‘madness’ in the 21st century, but whatever we may call it, in the Black Swan Natalie Portman’s creates a dramatic portrait of the descent into it.
6. Dream-Stealers – (and dream shapers and sowers). Evidently, new career options for the 21st century endless-recession economy introduced to us by Leonardo DiCaprio and his film Inception. The timid need not apply.
7. Nerd – Once more, we are fascinated by the rise of the nerd in The Social Network … though most nerds never overcome their nerdness, and only the most rare of exceptions is able to cash in on it.
8. Borogoves – Alice in Wonderland sheds a bit of light on the ‘borogoves’. As you know, they were all ‘mimsy’ in Charles Lutwidge Dodgson’s nonsense poem, Jabberwocky.
9. Shard – Though widely confused with the word ‘shred’ as in a ‘shred of truth’, Harry Potter finds a mirror shard, in which he catches a glimpse of a blue eye and keeps it for later use. From Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1.
10. 3D CGI – (Three-dimensional, Computer-generated imagery) Five of the top ten grossing films of 2010 were CGI-based 3D, accumulating some $1.3B domestically: Toy Story 3, Despicable Me, Shrek Forever After, How to Train Your Dragon, and Tangled. Whether this is a transformative trend or a passing fad has yet to be determined.
The Global Language Monitor uses a proprietary algorithm, the Predictive Quantities Indicator (PQI) to track the frequency of words and phrases in the global print and electronic media, on the Internet, throughout the Blogosphere, as well as accessing proprietary databases. The PQI is a weighted Index, factoring in: long-term trends, short-term changes, momentum, and velocity.
Previous Top HollyWord Winners include:
2009 ‘Pandora’ from Avatar
2008 ‘Jai Ho!’ Literally ‘Let there be Victory’ in Hindi from Slumdog Millionaire
2007 “Call it, Friendo,” from No Country for Old Men
2006 ‘High Five!!! Its sexy time!’ from Borat!
2005 ‘Brokeback’ from Brokeback Mountain
2004 “Pinot” from Sideways
2003 ‘Wardrobe malfunction’ from Super Bowl XXXVIII
NY Times attributes ‘How’s that Working Out for You? to Sarah Palin?
According to Tom Kuntz in the New York Times’ Week in Review (June 18, 2011):
Refudiate this: Sarah Palin’s undeniable impact on the English language. Exhibit A, of course, is the idiom she lent wildfire currency to only last year, by asking at a Tea Party convention on Feb. 6, “How’s that hopey-changey stuff working out for ya?” Witness the meme’s broad cultural reach ever since and — perhaps unfortunate in some cases — its seemingly limitless versatility.
“How’s that working out for ya?” — Herman Cain in the first Republican presidential debate on May 5, belittling rule by Washington politicians.
“Someone really should borrow Sarah Palin’s question and ask [Prime Minister] David Cameron: ‘How’s that hopey-changey thing working out for ya?’ ” — The Observer, London, March 27
“Hey, seniors, how’s that no-tax thing been working out for ya?” — Letter to the editor, The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 10 …
[and it goes on to cite another half dozen instances]
The Global Language Monitor has traced back the meme at least to the 1999 film Fight Club; the phrase, no doubt, can be traced much earlier.
GLM Comment : We think not. But perhaps an unexpected ability to fashion an English Sentence.
One week ago today, the MoJo DC bureau was consumed by the arrival of Sarah Palin’s emails covering the first half of her half-term as Alaska’s governor. As David Corn detailed, there were plenty of interesting discoveries—a less than chilly attitude toward climate change, for instance, and a sometimes obsessive attitude toward media critics (marginal and otherwise).
While we were poring over the documents, though, Michael McLaughlin of AOL’s Weird News was taking a different approach:
AOL Weird News brought samples to two writing analysts who independently evaluated 24,000 pages of the former governor’s emails. They came back in agreement that Palin composed her messages at an [8.5] level, an excellent score for a chief executive, they said…
“She’s very concise. She gives clear orders. Her sentences and punctuations are logical,” Payack said. “She has much more of a disciplined mind than she’s given credit for.”
Although it’s like comparing apples to oranges, Payack said that famous speeches like Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was a 9.1 and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” oration rated a 8.8 on the scale.
Having read several thousand pages of the Palin emails, I think apples and oranges might be a bit of an understatement here. But there’s also a bit of truth there: Palin’s written communications are noticeably more coherent than her efforts to explain herself verbally (witness: Paul Revere-gate).
Sarah Palin’s emails are telling us something about remedial writing classes at our universities and colleges, and it’s not what you think. Call her defensive or parochial based on the cache of her spontaneous writings while serving as governor of Alaska, but 
something easy to miss is that Palin, in contrast to her meandering, involuted speaking style, is a thoroughly competent writer—more so than a great many people most of us likely know, including college graduates.
Indeed, her facility in writing proves something one might be pardoned for supposing she was exaggerating about in Going Rogue, her autobiography, in which she limns a childhood portrait of herself as a bibliophilic sort of tot:
Reading was a special bond between my mother and me. Mom read aloud to me – poetry by Ogden Nash and the Alaska poet Robert Service, along with snippets of prose …. My siblings were better athletes, cuter and more sociable than I, and the only thing they had to envy about me was the special passion for reading that I shared with our mother.
That’s right, Sarah “you betcha” Palin was, of all things, a bookworm, excited to learn to spell “different” and winning a poetry contest for a poem about Betsy Ross. And as such, it is predictable that her emails would evidence such casually solid command of the language—even if her oral rendition of it is a different matter entirely.
Once we understand that, it leads to some serious questions, as posed by books getting buzz at present such as Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa’s Academically Adrift and In the Basement of the Ivory Tower by the anonymous “Professor X.” How sensible is our assigning millions of freshmen each year to classes intended to teach them a skill so deeply rooted in unconscious facilitation at an early age?
To get a sense, it helps to see a few of these emails. Because email is written speech, it’s easy to miss artfulness in them. Yet, take this Palin passage: “Even CP has admitted locking up tax rates as Glenn suggests is unacceptable to the legislature, the Alaskan public, this administration, and the Constitution.”
The spelling is flawless—and unlikely to be completely a product of spell-check, which misses errors and often creates others. More to the point, she has an embedded clause (“locking up tax rates”) nested into a main one, with another clause “as Glenn suggests” nested within the embedded one. That’s good old-fashioned grammar school “syntax.” I have known plenty of people with B.A.s who could barely pull it off properly at gunpoint, and several others who would only bother to at gunpoint.
Equally graceful despite its mundane content: “Cowdery telling a kid what’s acceptable and what isn’t inside these four walls??? Puleeeze. A three-pound puppy vs. all the CBC crap that he helped dump around here?” You hear an actual human voice here. We tell some people “I can hear your voice in the way you write”—because it’s unusual for people to be able to “write” themselves. Palin is one of the people who can. [Read More.]
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The huge cache of Sarah Palin’s emails released Friday offered not only a chance to see what she was writing about during her uncompleted term as Alaska’s governor, but also an opportunity to see how well she writes.
AOL Weird News brought samples to two writing analysts who independently evaluated 24,000 pages of the former governor’s emails. They came back in agreement that Palin composed her messages at an eighth-grade level, an excellent score for a chief executive, they said.
“I’m a centrist Democrat, and would have loved to support my hunch that Ms. Palin is illiterate,” said2tor Chief Executive Officer John Katzman.
“However, the emails say something else. Ms. Palin writes emails on her Blackberry at a grade level of 8.5.
“If she were a student and showing me her work, I’d say ‘It’s fine, clear writing,’” he said, admitting that emails he wrote scored lower than Palin’s on the widely used Flesch-Kincaid readability test.
“She came in as a solid communicator,” said Paul J.J. Payack, president of the Global Language Monitor. The emails registered as an 8.2 on his version of the test. “That’s typical for a corporate executive.”
An example of Palin’s strongest writing came on Jul. 17, 2007 in an email to Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell about the controversial Gravina Island Bridge, infamously called the “Bridge to Nowhere.”
“We cant afford it, the Feds won’t pay for it, the general populace isn’t placing it as a high priority … can you diplomatically express that?! Of course we want infrastructure — and this is NOT a “bridge to nowhere” (that is so offensive), but as it stands today with the highest-cost bridge design selected by the Ketchikan community, we need to find a lower-cost alternative [if] a bridge will be built.”
“She’s very concise. She gives clear orders. Her sentences and punctuations are logical,” Payack said. “She has much more of a disciplined mind than she’s given credit for.” [Read More.]
