Number of Words in the English Language:  1,013,913

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For Frequently Asked Questions about the Million Word March, go Here

‘Millionth English word’ declared

SEE ALSO

• The million words milestone(06.26)
• Millionth word milestone reached(05.26)

BBC NEWS | Programmes | World News America | ‘Millionth English word’ declared

“As expected, English crossed the 1,000,000 word threshold on June 10, 2009 at 10:22 am GMT. However, some 400 years after the death of the Bard, the words and phrases were coined far from Stratford-Upon-Avon, emerging instead from Silicon Valley, India, China, and Poland, as well as Australia, Canada, the US and the UK,” said Paul JJ Payack, president and chief word analyst of the Global Language Monitor. “English has become a universal means of communication; never before have so many people been able to communicate so easily with so many others.”

The English language is now being studies by hundreds of millions around the globe for entertainment, commercial or scientific purposes. In 1960 there were some 250 million English speakers, mostly in former colonies and the Commonwealth countries. The future of English as a major language was very much in doubt. Today, some 1.53 billion people now speak English as a primary, auxiliary, or business language, with some 250 million acquiring the language in China alone.

• Lexicography 2.0:  The Chambers Reference Editor’s blog

• Having Gaines its Millionth Word, English Marches On (July 20)

• English is the Word Millionaire (20 Minuten) June 22

• Simon Winchester:  ”On the Joys of our truly Global Language” — London Telegraph

• Word Nerd from ABC Nightline (Video)

• BBC News ‘Today’ Show, English Reaches Million Word Milestone (Audio)

• English Passes a Million Words — La Stampa

• GLM’s Answers Frequently Asked Questions about the Million Word March

• The Words in the Mental Cupboard (BBC Magazine)

• English Acquires its One Millionth Word (The Times)

• Ars Technica

• Computerworld

• Christian Science Monitor

There are 10,000 other stories hailing the arrival of the 1,000,000th word from Abu Dhabi, and Tehran, to Beijing, to Sydney, to Chicago and Sri Lanka.

Quote of the Week:

“What’s interesting about a million is that it’s such a tiny number compared to all the words we could have,” said Mark Pagel, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading who studies the comings and goings of words across history. (Using any combination of seven consonants with two vowels, for example, creates more than 100-million potential words.) But even with a relatively small pile to call on, words are mostly fleeting. (The Oxford English Dictionary has a list of words that have appeared on record only once in hundreds of years.) A small number of essential words such as “two” or “you” – or their variations – are ancients in the language family, Dr. Pagel said.  “Had you been wandering around the plains of Eurasia 15,000 years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age, you probably could have said ‘thou’ and someone would have know you were referring to them. We think that’s pretty astonishing.”  Toronto Globe and Mail, June, 2008

Why Twitter was not in running for the 1,000,000th word

Austin, Texas June 13, 2009 – Since the 1,000,000th word in the English announcement earlier this week, a number of news organizations have inquired as to why Twitter, the prominent microblog, was not on the final list of words considered for No. 1,000,000. According to Paul JJ Payack, president and Chief Word Analyst of the Global Language Monitor,  ”The answer is quite straight-forward: Twitter is already a word, as is its companion, to tweet. Certainly, the 21st century definition of twittering is much different than that of the Middle English twiteren, which is similar to the Old High German zwizzirōn, both of which mean, well, to twitter or as Merriam-Webster’s defines it “to utter successive chirping noises” or “to talk in a chattering fashion”. Since it is already catalogued as a headword, 21st c. twittering is simply a new entry, a new definition, under the ancient headword, twitter”.

IT Pro Portal Compares 12-month use of twitter vs Web 2.0

On June 10, the Global Language Monitor announced that Web 2.0 has bested Jai Ho, N00b and Slumdog as the 1,000,000th English word or phrase added to the codex of fourteen hundred-year-old language.

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Web 2.0 beats Jai Ho & N00b as 1,000,000th English Word

English passed the Million Word mark earlier today, June 10 at 10:22 am GMT

Word Number 1,000,001: Financial Tsunami

Austin, Texas June 10, 2009 – The Global Language Monitor today announced that Web 2.0 has bested Jai Ho, N00b and Slumdog as the 1,000,000th English word or phrase. added to the codex of fourteen hundred-year-old language. Web 2.0 is a technical term meaning the next generation of World Wide Web products and services. It has crossed from technical jargon into far wider circulation in the last six months. Two terms from India, Jai Ho! and slumdog finished No. 2 and 4. Jai Ho! Is a Hindi exclamation signifying victory or accomplishment; Slumdog is an impolite term for children living in the slums. Just missing the top spot was n00b, a mixture of letters and numbers that is a derisive term for newcomer. It is also the only mainstream English word that contains within itself two numerals. Just missing the final five cut-off,  was another technical term, cloud computing, meaning services that are delivered via the cloud. At its current rate, English generates about 14.7 words a day or one every 98 minutes.

These are the fifteen finalists for the one millionth English word, all of which have met the criteria of a minimum of 25,000 citations with the necessary breadth of geographic distribution, and depth of citations.

1,000,000: Web 2.0 – The next generation of web products and services, coming soon to a browser near you.

999,999: Jai Ho! – The Hindi phrase signifying the joy of victory, used as an exclamation, sometimes rendered as “It is accomplished”. Achieved English-language popularity through the multiple Academy Award Winning film, “Slumdog Millionaire”.

999,998: N00b — From the Gamer Community, a neophyte in playing a particular game; used as a disparaging term.

999,997: Slumdog – a formerly disparaging, now often endearing, comment upon those residing in the slums of India.

999,996: Cloud Computing – The ‘cloud’ has been technical jargon for the Internet for many years. It is now passing into more general usage.

999,995: Carbon Neutral — One of the many phrases relating to the effort to stem Climate Change.

999,994: Slow Food — Food other than the fast-food variety hopefully produced locally (locavores).

999,993: Octomom – The media phenomenon relating to the travails of the mother of the octuplets.

999,992: Greenwashing – Re-branding an old, often inferior, product as environmentally friendly.

999,991: Sexting – Sending email (or text messages) with sexual content.

999,990: Shovel Ready – Projects are ready to begin immediately upon the release of federal stimulus funds.

999,989: Defriend – Social networking terminology for cutting the connection with a formal friend.

999,988: Chengguan – Urban management officers, a cross between mayors, sheriff, and city managers.

999,987: Recessionista – Fashion conscious who use the global economic restructuring to their financial benefit.

999,986: Zombie Banks – Banks that would be dead if not for government intervention and cash infusion.
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In addition, the 1,000,001^st word is Financial Tsunami – The global financial restructuring that seemingly swept out of nowhere, wiping out trillions of dollars of assets, in a matter of months.

Each word was analyzed to determine which depth (number of citations) and breadth (geographic extent of word usage), as well as number of appearances in the global print and electronic media, the Internet, the blogosphere, and social media (such as Twitter and YouTube). The Word with the highest PQI score was deemed the 1,000,000th English language word. The Predictive Quantities Indicator (PQI) is used to track and analyze word usage.

Global Language Monitor has been tracking English word creation since 2003. Once it identifies new words (or neologisms) it measures their extent and depth of usage with its PQI technology.

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The Economist Predictions for 2009 Preview:

English Marks a Million

Listen to the segment on Morning Edition

Save the Date:  English nears a milestone (Christian Science Monitor)

News Forcaster: When will English pass 1 million words?

Current forecast: after 3/30/08 and before 4/30/08 (45% chance)

A Contrary View of the Million Word March

ENGLISH AND ITS ODDITIES ; The word factory keeps producing

The Million Word March in Smithsonian Magazine

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THE WORLD IN WORDS:  Top Words of 2008

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Essay:  The Number of Words in the English Language

There are many things in the Universe that can never be precisely measured but that doesn’t stop Humankind from attempting to take their measure.

For example, there are on the order of:

• 7,000 human languages and dialects (6,912 to be precise);
• About 50,000 ideograms in the various Chinese dialects (though countless more words);
• About 100,000,000,000 stars in the Milky Way galaxy (and some 100,000,000,000 galaxies in the universe);
• Over 35,500,000 residents of California;
• And then there are 10 raised to the power of 72 atomic particles in the universe; that is, precisely:

10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,

000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atomic particles;

• There are fewer than 100,000 words in the French language;

• There are some some 6.5 billion folks on the planet; (and about 20 billion that have ever walked upon the Earth);

• Fewer than 20,000 different words in the Bible, (actually, 12,143 in the English, 783,137 total in the King James Version, 8,674 in the Hebrew Old Testament, and 5,624 in the Greek New Testament);

• And 24,000 differing words to be found in the complete works of Shakespeare, about 1,700 of which he invented.

Finally, if you emptied all the water out of Lake Tahoe and spread it evenly over all of California it would be about 14 inches deep,  Not that anyone would ever attempt to do so. Or actually care.

Which brings us to the number of words in English.

The central idea of writing is, of course, the idea. Ideas by their very nature are wispy sorts of things. This being so, you can’t grab an idea and do with it what you will. Rather the best for which one can hope is to encapsulate the idea and preserve it for time immemorial in some sort of ethereal amber. We call this amber, language; the basic building block of which is, of course, the word. (We are speaking now as poets and not as linguists.)

As such, writers of English have the good fortune of having hundreds of thousands of words from which to choose. When you think of it, the English language writer always has at least three words for any idea, each rooted in the Latin, the Germanic or Saxon tongues, and the Greek. Think of a word for human habitation: city, town, metropolis, and so on. And that’s just the start. In the English-speaking world we also owe a heavy debt to Algonquin, and Hebrew, and Malay (ketchup anyone?) and Maori, and Zulu and Hmong among a multitude of others. I think you can spot the beginnings of a trend here.

And then there is the entire realm of  ”jargon,” scientific and otherwise, those specialized patois or vocabularies known only to those in specific fields. Computer-related jargon is multiplying at an extraordinary rate. And since English has become the lingua Franca of the Internet, English words are being created and non-English words co-opted at an ever-quickening pace.

Scientists estimate that there are approximately 10,000,000,000 neurons in a typical human brain.  Each of these neurons can theorectically interconnect with all the rest.

This being so, the number of interconnects within a single human brain is greater than the entire number of atomic particles in the universe.

If you equate these interconnects to ideas, or even thoughts, the number of potential words needed to express them is, indeed, staggering on the order of billions and billions of trillions.

This being said, I now unequivocally state that as of the 1st day of January in the year 2012 AD (or CE, whatever your preference), we estimate that there will be some  1,013,913  words in the English language, plus or minus a handful.

Choose well among them.

PJJP

Austin, Texas, USA

Arab Spring is the Top Phrase of the Year and

Steve Jobs is the Top Name of the Year

Global Language Monitor’s 12th Annual Survey of Global English

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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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See the Photo Essay from the Toronto Star

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BBC Magazine: The rich: Exactly what does that mean?

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.2011, l’année Steve Jobs?

(Time Person of the Year?)

Nunberg also selects ‘occupy’ as the 2011 Word of the Year

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The Top Words of 2011

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).

See the Photo Essay from The Stylist (UK)

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.

10. (The Other) 99 – Referring to the majority of those living in Western Democracies who are left out of the dramatic rise in earnings associated with “the Top 1%”.

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.

8. Bunga Bunga – Re-emerged in the language through ‘bunga-bunga’ parties hosted by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

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

1. Steve Jobs – The citations for Steve Jobs topped those for No. 2 (Osama bin-Laden and Seal Team 6) by more than 30%.

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.

.At the Intersection of Technology and the Word

Now incorporating TrendTopper Technologies

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GLM impacts the World

Global Language Monitor (GLM) is a media analytics company that documents, analyzes and tracks cultural trends in language the world over, with a particular emphasis upon Global English.  GLM is based in Austin, Texas.

GLM has deep academic and internet roots. GLM’s predecessor site, yourDictionary.com is the direct descendent of the Web of Online Dictionaries at Bucknell University, founded in 1994.

In 1999, Paul JJ Payack, with a long background in technological innovation,  joined two partners  and reorganized Web of Online Dictionaries into yourDictionary.com, where Payack was the founding president. YDC assembled the industry’s premier advisory council of experts; it was the the largest multi-lingual dictionary destination on the web with some 240 languages. In 2003 Payack, created the Global Language Monitor to carry on the media analysis functions began at YDC. (For example, YDC was the first dictionary to publish its annual Word of the Year WOTY ™ lists.)

Scholars around the world incorporate GLM’s findings into their research and publications.  For a representative sampling, click here..

The Global Language Monitor offers the following algorithmic-based services:.

• Ambush Marketing:  Tracking how companies leverage the world’s major sporting events to appear as if they are sponsors
• NarrativeTracking:  Tracking the story lines that politicians and organizations weave to spread their point of view
• College Reputation:  Helping to differentiate colleges among their peers to help gain and retain students
• Political Services:  Providing virtual polling and the tracking of political narratives
• Business Intelligence:  Unbiased snapshots of your competitive strengths and weaknesses
• TrendTopper Services:  Specialized analyses that help you understand your market, products and/or competition

GLM  algorithmic methodologies create actionable intelligence that can be used for brand analysis, product positioning, alternatives to focus groups, as well as helping organizations understand a world now dominated by the noise of billions of Internet voices competing to be heard.

Our main services include various products based on TrendTopper MediaBuzz and Narrative Tracker technologies.  For information on the methodologies behind GLM’s algorithmic-based services, contact us by phone or email below.   GLM’s proprietary software is key to its leadership position as the top global media analytics organization for the world wide web.

We found it highly interesting that many institutions used our TrendTopper MediaBuzz College rankings as a validation of their recent reputation management decisions:

Harvard University: “Rankings highlight correlation between university prestige and media coverage … Indeed, the study seems to validate the Harvard Kennedy School’s recent decision to rebrand itself. Known as the Kennedy School of Government until last spring, the public policy and administration changed its shorthand so that it includes the word “Harvard”.

Boston College: “University Spokesman Jack Dunn said, “Boston College’s ranking in this study serves as an affirmation of what we have long believed. Academic research and accomplishments along with media citations and this recent ranking are all affirmations of the growing steam of this university.” The major factors that contributed to BC’s high ranking were a well-published academic community, a strong public relations office, and a successful sports program in recent years.

Vanderbilt University: “… when prospective students, faculty, friends and neighbors hear ‘Vanderbilt’ they associate it with excellent academic programs, innovative research, world class health care, the best students, a gorgeous campus, a dynamic hometown, rockin’ athletics and more. And, by one measure at least, we’re succeeding.”

Chronicle of Higher Education: “[GLM’s TrendTopper analysis] is at least one measure of wealth, success and prestige,” Hoover said. “Even on campuses where presidents do not put too much stock into rankings themselves, it is something they must think about” because alums and top students pay attention to them. – Eric Hoover, marketing strategies, Chronicle of Higher Education, quoted in Harvard Crimson.

See where your school (or prospective schools) ranks:  Click below to download your 2012 Guide for $19.97.

GLM as a Source of Record

GLM continues to be cited hundreds of by the leading print and electronic media the world over. In fact, the worldwide print and electronic media have come to rely on The Global Language Monitor for its expert analysis on cultural trends and their subsequent impact on various aspects of culture.

For Contact Information, call 001 512 815 8836 or email pauljjpayack@gmail.com.

Worldwide print and electronic media have come to rely on GLM for it TrendTracking and analytics-based analyses.

A representative sampling includes:  CNN, MSNBC, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Associated Press, United Press International, Knight-Ridder, USAToday, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, The Charlotte Observer, Minneapolis Star Tribune, San Jose Mercury, New York Post, NPR, FoxNews, ABC, NBC, CBS, ChinaNews, Peoples Daily, The National Post, The Sydney Morning Herald, The BBC, the Australian Braodcasting Company, The Canadian Broadcasting Company, The Cape Town Argus, El Pais (Madrid), The Daily Mail (Scotland), The Hindustan Times, The Gulf News (Qatar), and various electronic and print media on six continents.

The GLM is supported by a worldwide network of technologists, professional wordsmiths and academics to help monitor the latest trends in the evolution (and demise) of language, word usage and word choices, and their impact on the various aspects of culture.

The New York Times:   The Power of Words

The Times features the Global Language Monitor and our algorithmic-based methodologies back on January 29, 2006.  Click here. This seminal article, analyzed the potential for a real estate crash some eighteen months before the Global Economic Restructuring.

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About Paul JJ Payack

Paul JJ Payack in the NPR Studio

Paul JJ Payack (PJJP Pictures) has served as a senior executive of three Fortune 500 high technology companies, and three Silicon Valley technology companies that were acquired buy three other Silicon Valley giants, as well as numerous start-ups and re-starts.

Currently, GLM’s President and Chief Word Analyst, he also was the founding president of yourDictionary.com. These two language sites attract millions of page views a month.

Payack taught scientific and technological communications and other forms of expository writing at the University of Massachusetts, and has lectured at the University of Texas, Babson College, the Federal Reserve Bank (NY), GM/Hughes Aircraft, and many others.  He is a frequent quest on the media circuit including CNN, the BBC, NPR, the CBS, Australia Broadcasting Company and Chinese Radio and Television.

Payack studied philosophy and psychology at Bucknell University and was graduated from Harvard University (where he studied dead languages, comparative literature, and fine arts).

He currently resides in Austin, Texas with his wife, Millie, and family. Contact Payack directly:  001 512 815 8836 or pauljjpayack@gmail.com.

Payack is the author of some eighteen collections (seven currently in print), the latest of which are  A Million Words and Counting, Kensington (New York) as well as co-author with Edward ML Peters of  The Paid-for Option (Tower Oaks Press), an analysis of the healthcare crisis in the USA.

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.]

Click here to expand
Source: Online Schooling

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.

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Rise of China Still Tops all Stories

Royal Wedding breaks in at No. 5; Obama top mover (+4)

AUSTIN, Texas May 6, 2011 – The Top News Stories of the 21^st century have been shuffled by the historic events of the still young 2011, according to the Austin-based Global Language Monitor. The death of Osama bin-Laden, the Royal Wedding, between Prince William and the former Kate Middleton, the unprecedented series of Japanese disasters, and the series of uprisings now known as the the Arab Spring have all broken into the Top Ten.

The on-going rise of China to first-tier nation status continues as No. 1. The election of Barack Obama to the US presidency moved up to the second spot, followed by the death of bin-Laden, and the springing of the Wikileaks followed. The Royal Wedding pushed ahead of the death of Michael Jackson and also replaced Jackson as top celebrity-driven event of the century thus far. The 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Japanese Disasters, the Arab Spring and the Global Economic Restructuring rounded out the Top Ten.

The acceleration of the news cycle has been a long-observed fact, however the acceleration of the news itself can also be viewed as unprecedented,” said Paul JJ Payack, President and the Chief Word Analyst of Austin-based Global Language Monitor.“

The full list of the Top 20 News Stories of the 21^st century thus far follows. The includes the story and its rank, the year the story first broke, its ranking in 1999 and its movement (if any).

Rank of Story, Year the Story Began, Last Ranking in 2009 and Movement

1. Rise of China 2000 1 (Same)

2. Election of Barack Obama 2008 6 (+4)

3. Bin-laden Killed 2011 New —

4. Wikileaks Published 2010 New —

5. Royal Wedding British 2011 New —

6. Death of Michael Jackson 2009 5 (-1)

7. 9/11 Terrorist Attacks 2001 3 (-4)

8. Japanese Disasters 2011 2011 New —

9. Arab Spring 2011 New —

10. Global Economic Restructuring 2008 7 (-3)

11. War on Terror 2001 4 (-7)

12. Iraq War 2003 2 (-10)

13. Hurricane Katrina 2005 8 (-5)

14. Social Media as Strategic Weapon 2011 New —

15. South Asian Tsunami 2004 12 (-3)

16. Osama bin-Laden Search 2001 15 (-1)

17. iPad Launch 2010 New —

18. Death of Pope John Paul II 2005 14 (-4)

19. War against Taliban 2002 13 (-6)

20. War in Afghanistan 2002 9 (-11)

GLM employed it NarrativeTracker Technology in analyzing the data. NarrativeTracker first focused on the number of citations found the Internet, blogosphere, and social media sites. The second focused on the top 75,000 print and electronic media sites. Finally, the two analyses were normalized.

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AUSTIN, Texas, March 21,  2011 — (Updated Daily) The Global Language Monitor has assembled the Japanese Disasters Need-to-Know Glossary to help understand the sometimes obtuse and ofter obscure terminology used in describing the concurrent Japanese Disasters that we are now witnessing.

We will add to the document as events continue to unfold.

“This is a tragedy of unprecedented proportions.  We believe it is our responsibility to help people around the globe more fully understand the depth of the destruction and the nature of the circumstances that have already have and continue to unfold,” said Paul JJ Payack, President and Chief Word Analyst of the Global Language Monitor.

Can Your Family or Business Survive a Disaster for Three Days? Click Here!

Term	Definition
1.6 microseconds	Number of microseconds the Earth’s spin was increased by the Sendai earthquake
9.0 magnitude	The Japanese quake was 9.0 on the Richter Scale. This makes it about 700,000 times more powerful than last year’s Haitian earthquake. (See Richter Scale.)
12.5 magnitude	Theoretical magnitude of the Chicxulub asteroid impact 65,000,000,000 years ago that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. (However, mammals live through it.)
900 kph	The waves of the tsunami traveled traveled about as fast as of typical passenger jetliner (About 560 mph/900 kph)
Black Swan	Black Swan: rare but Nation-destroying disasters: an asteroid hitting the earth; a super volcano (Yellowstone Caldera) rending half a continent lifeless; a solar flare that destroys all modern communication systems. The Japanese Tri-Crisis qualifies as a Black Swab.
Cesium-137	Metal of the Alkali group that can signal the presence of a nuclear reaction. The half-life of Cesium 137 is 30 years. This means it would take about 200 years for something contaminated with it to lose all signs of radioactivity. Its name is derived from the Latin for a bluish-gray color
Chernobyl	The Chernobyl incident in Ukraine in 1986 was considered the world’s worst nuclear accident until now. A carbon-fed fire sent the radioactive elements high into the atmosphere affecting every country in Europe.
Chest X Ray	Each chest x ray exposes you to about .04 mSv. A major surgery might require 1,000 x rays, which would result in 40 mSv. A single CT heart scan results in a 12 mSv exposure.
China Syndrome	Theory that a molten nuclear core breeches its containment vessel (in the US) and proceeds through the Earth’s core all the way to China. This is not actually possible. (See Tierra del Fuego syndrome.)
Containment Building	(or vessel) Reinforced concrete structure made to serve as final barrier to entrap radioactive gases
Earthquake	Shaking of Earth’s crust due to underlying tectonic forces
Epicenter	The center of the earthquake, ofter miles underground.
Fuel Rods	The affected Japanese reactors have thousands of 12-foot long, zirconium-alloy fuel rods. Each contain thousands of uranium-oxide ceramic pellets. The fuel rods are densely packed into the reactor.
Fukushima 50	The fifty workers serving as the final defense against a catastrophic meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi.
Fukushima Daiichi	The nuclear reactors site with six boiling water reactors. 1, 2 and 6 were built by General Electric. 3, 4 and 5 were built by Toshiba. Fukushima Daiichi is 241 km (150 miles) from Tokyo.
Half-Life	The time it takes radioactive material to expend one half of its radioactivity. The longer the half-life, the more dangerous the material.
Hiroshima Bomb	The Hiroshima atomic bomb was detonated on August 6, 1945. It’s yield was estimated between 13 and 18 kilotons of TNT. It was set equivalent to a 6.2 magnitude quake.
IAEA	International Atomic Energy Agency is headquartered in Vienna.
Indian Ocean Tsunami	The Indian Ocean Tsunami on Boxing Day in 2004 resulted in waves over 18 meters (50 feet) high. Over 250,000 people were killed, some 5,000 km (3000 m) away.
International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES)	The INES, introduced in1990 by the IAEA, has seven levels, with 1-3 considered incidents and 4-7, accidents. The Fukushima incident was recently moved from Level 4 to 5 (equivalent to Three Mile Island). Chernobyl is the only Level 7 accident on record.). The French Nuclear Agency suggests Fukushima to be a Level 6.
Iodine-131	Iodine-131 is a highly radioactive element that signifies at least a partial meltdown. The half-life of Iodine-131 is about 8 days, which means that it decays far faster than Cesium-137. The radioactive iodine is concentrated in the thyroid, however taking iodine potassium tablets fill the thyroid to capacity so the radioactive Iodine -131 is more likely to be excreted.
Krakatoa	Indonesian Volcano that exploded in 1883 with a force equivalent to 8.5 magnitude (and some 200 megatons). Purported to be the loudest sound ever heard up to 5,000 km (or about 3,000 miles). The sound waves were measured to circle the earth seven times.
Linear No Threshold Model	LNT basically it means that even a small exposure to radioactivity will increase the chance of cancer occurring in a corresponding small percentage of the population. The smaller the exposure, the smaller the risk, but the risk never falls to zero. The LNT model is generally accepted by most governments and scientific agencies, but is considered controversial in some scientific circles. This is why you hear conflicting views from experts on the cancer risk.
Meltdown	When a core meltdown catastrophic melting of the core of a nuclear reactor due to a loss of cooling
No. 5	The earthquake was the fifth strongest since 1900.
Nuclear reactor	Devices that use chain reactions of fissionable materials to boil water to create steam. The steam runs through turbines to create power.
Plate tectonics	Theory that the continents rest on plates that drift into each other, causing earthquakes and mountain building
Prefecture	States or Provinces of Japan. There are 47 prefectures.
Richter scale	The logarithmic scale that measures the strength of an earthquake named after Charles Richter. It is a base-10 logarithmic scale. This means that an earthquake that measures 3.0 is 10 times more powerful that one measuring 2.0. The scale is open-ended, though the 1960 Chile quake measured at 9.6.
Sendai Earthquake	At 9.0 the Sendai earthquake was the fifth largest since 1900. The Sendai quake was equivalent to about 100,000 Hiroshima-class bombs.
Sievert and millisievert	(and millisievert) A unit of measurement for radiation dosage. According to the World Health Organization, the average person is exposed to about 3 millisieverts a year from natural sources and 3 mSv from human-made sources.
Three Mile Island	In 1979 Unit No. 2 of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania experienced a partial meltdown. Later it was found that the molten radioactive material penetrated within 1 centimeter of breaking through the containment barrier. Because of its location and the prevailing wind patterns, the fallout could have traveled over the heavily populated Eastern Seaboard, passing over Philadelphia, New York and possibly Boston with a population of more than 30,000,000.
Tierra del Fuego Syndrome	The China Syndrome when applied to the Far East (See China Syndrome.)
Tokyo	Capital of Japan with more than 30,000,000 people in its metropolitan area.
Tsar Bomba	The largest hydrogen bomb ever detonated, by the Soviet Union in 1961. It was about equal to a 7.8 magnitude quake in the general range of the San Francisco earthquake 0f 1908 and the Mount Saint Helen’s volcanic explosion in 1981.
Tsunami	From the Japanese tsu (harbor) and nami (wave); waves caused by undersea land movement; usually caused by earthquakes. A tsunami gathers destructive force as it nears land. Depending on the configuration of the shoreline, wave rise over ten-times in height.
Two Packs a Day	Smoking two packs of cigarettes a day exposes you to about 17 mSv per year. Smoke for a lifetime that’s 850 mSv.

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US Healthcare Reform & Wikileaks follow

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First time a product launch contends for the top spot; First time a sporting event reaches the top spot

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Austin, TX December 19, 2009 – In an exclusive global analysis performed by the Global Language Monitor, the Top News Stories of 2010 are South African World Cup, the iPad Launch, the Rise of China, US Healthcare Reform, and Wikileaks.  The Tea Party movement, the fall of Obama, the Gulf Oil Spill, Haitian Earthquake, and the Political Anger and Rage witnessed in the major western economies, followed.  The list is notable for two firsts:  the first time a sporting event tops the list and the first time a product launch contends for the top spot.

Chinese Dignitaries

“The globe has witnessed the major news sources of the 20th century fragment into thousands of micro-focused outlets in the twenty-first.   At the same time, the major global media are playing an ever-more important role when major events occur, as aggregate communities for shared experiences,” said Paul JJ Payack, President and Chief Word Analyst of the Global Language Monitor, the media analytics and trend tracking company.  “For these reasons we performed two independent analyses.  The first focused on the number of citations found over the course of the year on the Internet, blogosphere, and social media sites.  The second focused on the top 75,000 print and electronic media sites.  Finally, the two analyses were normalized with the final results appearing here.”

The Top News Stories of 2010 follow.

Rank/Story/Comment

1.  South African World Cup –  The South African World Cup towered over all other news stories.

2.   iPad – A product launch is the No. 2 worldwide news story!?

3.  Rise of China – Top Story of the First Decade of the 21^st century, still very strong.

4.  Health Care Reform – The debate over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Ac t continues unabated.

5.   Wikileaks – Not a wiki in the usual sense of ‘an open environment which anyone can edit,’ the story of revealed institutional secrets that will continue to resonate well into 2011.

6.  Tea Party – The US political movement which emphasizes scaled back government intrusion, influence and spending.

7.  Fall of Obama – His fall is relative to the great heights to which he ascended.

8.  Gulf Oil Spill – An unprecedented environmental catastrophe broadcast live around the world via the BP Spillcam.

9.  Haitian Earthquake – Hundreds of thousands killed, millions displaced and the agony continues.

10.  Political Anger and Rage – Frustration in the US and  much of the developed world about the financial and political situation.

11.  EU Financial Crisis – The economies of Ireland, Portugal, Greece and Spain threaten to consume Billions of Euros in bailouts.

12.  Shanghai Expo – The “Grand Gathering of the World Cultures” was visited by some 70 million in 2010.

13.  Growth of Facebook – With 400 million members it now touts itself as the fourth largest nation on the planet.  However, there is no word of UN membership or plans for a standing army.

14.  Pakistan Floods – Garnered more attention worldwide than in the US.

15.  Scott Brown Election – The turnover of the ‘Kennedy seat’ after half a century to this upstart, pickup-driving Republican caused quite a stir.

16.  Tiger Woods – Previously notable for the first golfer to earn a billion dollars, the news of his serial infidelities continues to impact the golf world.

17.  British coalition government — David Cameron and Nick Clegg lead a new coalition into power.

18.  Chilean Miners – The dramatic saga and rescue of Los 33, provided riveting drama (and television) to a world weary of disheartening news.

19.  Polish President Killed — Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and dozens of high government officials died en route to a memorial service honoring the 20,000 Poles who died in the Katyn forest.

20.  Global economic restructuring – Also known as the Great Recession in the US, but felt worldwide especially among developed Western nations.

21.  Vuvuzela –  The brightly colored plastic horns  that caused much consternation at the South African World Cup.

23.  Ground Zero Mosque – Officially known as 45 Park Place, the controversial Islamic center planned a few blocks north of Ground Zero.

24.  Icelandic Volcano – The unpronounceable Eyjafjallajökull volcano that disrupted air travel over much of Northern Europe.

25.  Snowmageddon –  The unusually heavy snowfalls that virtually shut down Washington, DC during an exceptionally snowy winter.

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and Chinese Leader Hu Jintao the Top Name

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AUSTIN, Texas November 27, 2010 (Updated) – The Global Language Monitor has announced that Spillcam is the Top Word, Anger and Rage the Top Phrase and Chinese Leader Hu Jintao the Top Name of 2010 in its annual global survey of the English language.  Spillcam was followed by Vuvuzela, the Narrative, Refudiate, and Guido.  Deficit, Snowmageddon, 3-D, Shellacking and Simplexity rounded out the Top 10.

“Our top words this year come from an environmental disaster, the World Cup, political malapropisms, new senses to ancient words, a booming economic colossus, and a heroic rescue that captivated the world for days on end.  This is fitting for a relentlessly growing global language that is being taken up by thousands of new speakers each and every day,” said Paul JJ Payack, President of The Global Language Monitor.

The words are culled from throughout the English-speaking world, which now numbers more than 1.58 billion speakers.

Methodology: The Global Language Monitor’s WOTY was conceived in 1999 as a way to create a cultural record of the year as reflected in the world’s current global language, English.  Previous efforts were decided by small groups of academics or lexicographers; our idea was to reflect the words used by the world’s 1.5 billion English Speakers.

Accordingly, GLM monitors million of web pages on the Internet, Blogosphere, and social media in addition to over 80,000 print and electronic media sites.  In this way we search for words that are the most relevant to various aspects of culture, such as world events (the rise of China, the South Asian Tsunami), politics (the election of Obama to the US Presidency), prominent deaths (Pope John Paul II, Michael Jackson), war and terror (Iraq, Afghanistan and the  Terrorist Attacks on the US and London), film (Jai Ho!, Brokeback), sports (Beijing Olympics, South African World Cup), and the like. We then use our analytical engine to determine the number of citations for the words, their prominence, how quickly they are rising or falling in use, and the geographic breadth and depth (various forms of publication) of their use.

To immediately download an in-depth presentation of GLM’s algorithmic-based methodology, fill out the form on the upper left corner of this page.

To listen to “What’s My Word,” a game show developed by Austin’s NPR flagship station, KUT,to help review the top words for 2010, click here.

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For the Top Words of the Decade (2000-2009), go here.

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The Top Words of 2010

Rank / Word / Comments

1.  Spillcam — The BP Spillcam instantly beamed the immensity of the Gulf Spill around the world to the dismay of environmentalists, BP’s PR staff and the President.

2.  Vuvuzela — Brightly colored plastic horns that first came to prominence at the South African World Cup.

3.  The Narrative – Though used at least since The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass in 1845,  ‘The Narrative’ has recently been gaining traction in the political arena, virtually replacing the need for a party’s platform.  (Cf. to ‘truthily’.)

4.  Refudiate — Conflation of “refute” and “repudiate” (un)officially coined by Sarah Palin.

5.   Guido and Guidette — Hey! All things Jersey are hot, capish? (Actually, capisci in standard Italian.)

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Listen to Tracking 2010′s Most-Used Words, Names And Phrases

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6.   Deficit – A growing and possibly intractable problem for the economies of most of the developed world.

7.  Snowmagedden (and ‘Snowpocalypse’) — Portmanteau words linking ‘snow’ with ‘apocalypse’ and  ‘armageddon’, used to describe the record snowfalls in the US East Coast and Northern Europe last winter.

8.  3-D – Three-dimensional (as in movies) is buffo box office this year, but 3-D is being used in new ways generally describing ‘robustness’ in products (such as toothpaste).

9.  Shellacking – President Obama’s description of the ‘old-fashioned thumpin’ in George W. Bush’s words, that Democrats received in the 2010 US Mid-term elections.

10.  Simplexity – The paradox of simplifying complex ideas in order to make them easier to understand, the process of which only adds to their complexity.

Also Noted: (Spoken Only) Twenty-ten: Finally, a common way to refer to the year; Obamacare (noted as one of the Top Political Buzzwords).

The Top Phrases of 2010

Rank / Phrase / Comments

1.  Anger and Rage – Characterizations of the US electorate by the pundits, though closer analyses has revealed more frustration and disappointment.  Also witnessed in France, Spain and Greece.

2.  Climate Change – (and Global Warming) No. 1 Phrase for the first decade of the 21^st century; starts out second decade at No. 2.

3.  The Great Recession – The media term frequently used to describe the on-going global economic restructuring.

4.  Teachable Moment – Turning any undesirable outcome into a positive opportunity by using it as an object lesson. Unfortunately, there were a plethora of teachable moments in the first year of the new decade.

5.  Tea Party — An emerging political movement in the US that has upset the balance of power in the US Congress.

6.  Ambush Marketing – Cashing in at an event by taking on the appearance of a sponsor of the event.  Most obviously displayed at the Vancouver Winter Olympics and South Africa’s World Cup 2010.

7.  Lady Gaga — Gaga, herself, became a buzzword in the global entertainment industry in 2010.

8.  Man Up – This election cycle’s signature retort from the women running for office to their male opponents.

9.  Pass the bill to be able to see what’s in it — Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s now infamous quip underlying the complexity of the Healthcare Reform legislation.

10.  Obamamania — Notable only in it fall from grace; Obamamania now ranks at the bottom of this year’s political buzzwords.

Also Noted — Don’t Touch My Junk: One reaction to the TSA new search policies.

The Top Names of 2009

Rank / Name / Comments

1.  Hu – President Hu Jintao, paramount leader of China.  Rise of China was the No. 1 Story of the 1^st decade of the 21^st century; now Hu begins the second decade in the top spot.

2.  IPad – With over eight million sold in a matter of months, the IPad is now a name on everybody’s lips.  (Sorry, Steve Jobs, the IPads tests better than you.)

3.  Barack Obama — President of the United States has had a tough sophomore year.

4.  Chilean Coal Miners – The ordeal and heroic rescue is perhaps the top inspirational story of the year.

5.  Eyjafjallajoekull – Does a name that no one can pronounce deserve a spot on a top name’s list?

6.  Nancy Pelosi – Speaker of the US House of Representatives, presided over the passing of the healthcare reform bill and the decimation of her party in the Mid-term elections.

7.  Sarkozy – Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa, the current French president, is attempting to re-define what it means to be citizen of the Republic.

8.  Tea Party – Leaderless movement in US political circles, the center of much of the angst in the electorate.

9.  Jersey Shore – Not quite the Cote d’Azure, The Shore, as the locals call it, is now known as a breeding ground for guidos and guidettes.

10.  David Cameron and Nick Clegg – The leaders of the UK’s new coalition government.

Also Noted — Kate Middleton, recently engaged to Prince William.

Top Words of the Decade:

The Top Words of the Decade were Global Warming, 9/11, and Obama outdistance Bailout, Evacuee, and Derivative; Google, Surge, Chinglish, and Tsunami followed.

Climate Change  was top phrase; Heroes was top name.

Previous Words of the Year include:

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

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Listen to Top Words 2010 and how they reflect the year

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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)

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“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’.”

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Note:  This is the second in a series; you can see the first article directly below this one.
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November 30.  Where do we go from here?  We’ve already established that this is not a typical business cycle and this recession falls out of scope of previous recessions. Even the Great Depression was typical in the sense that it set off a worldwide fall in demand and productivity. It is now widely understood that while government intervention did stop the catastrophic collapse of the global economy, this intervention did little to revitalize global economic growth which did not resume until the onset of World War II.

This post first appeared on TheHill.com

Now, fast forward to September 2008 and months following shortly thereafter. There is wide agreement that the direct and dramatic Bush/Obama interventions did, indeed, prevent a global economic collapse. However, for many nations, including the U.S., the revitalization has yet to occur. While the stimulus spending saved many jobs in the public sector, few jobs were created in the private or wealth-creating sector. In retrospect it now appears that the stimulus was the equivalent to eating empty calories when hungry; a temporary rise in blood sugar without sustained nutrition.

This lack of wealth-building focus has led to a weak economic performance of 2.4 percent projected growth in GDP, hardly what one expects after such spending. (This growth rate has already been revised downward to 1.6 percent in the last quarter.) If this scenario does play out as expected, the eight million lost jobs will be replaced with new ones — by the 2020 time frame. By way of comparison, the “Reagan Recovery” created over 11,000,000 new jobs with four years.

While President Obama’s economic policies and overall execution of leadership is the current focus of many commentators, it remains a fact that this situation didn’t sneak up on us. The United States manufacturing sector has declined as a percentage of non-farm employment from about 30 percent in 1950 to just 9.27 percent in 2010, according to the October estimate of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Also, an underlying statistic is that the U.S. has been losing not just manufacturing jobs, but entire factories, over 40,000 of them since 2000. The ramifications here go far beyond the manufacturing sector itself. Indeed, by some estimates, there is a 15-1 multiplier between other jobs (including manufacturing and service) and each manufacturing position. Therefore, this unprecedented loss of an industrial base and its concomitant plethora of supporting positions leave a greatly reduced platform upon which to launch a successful and timely recovery.

And so the question remains: Where do we go from here?

First, take a deep breath, look in the mirror and repeat; the world is different from what it was in 1982 and wishing and acting like it was the same will not bring those lost manufacturing jobs back. No matter what we do, trying to recapture global leadership in industries where the average U.S. salary (excluding benefits) is over $20/hr where the similar cost in China or Mexico is between $2-$6/hr is a losing proposition. This is not to say that the U.S. should not continue to innovate and look to manufacture world-class products, only that we will have to pick our battles in places where we have a strategic competence and a willingness to compete. Specifically, management must be willing to continually analyze each process for best in class behaviors and continually work to improve in order to maintain a leadership position.

Second, focus strategic investment in industries where the U.S. has a substantial lead or could develop one in future. Good examples here are in the area of information technology, where private investment continues to create new enterprises and wealth and “green technology” whose future is yet to unfold. We need to remind ourselves of the effectiveness of the U.S. Space Program, not only in accomplishing its primary mission, but creating entire industries and market that are still returning value to this day.

Third, fully accept that the old manufacturing jobs will not be repatriated and implement a program that will both create true value for the economy while putting people back to work. In past recessions, workers were typically called back to their jobs as the economy improved. This time however, with the loss of so many factories, the jobs platform is significantly smaller and is unable to support the type of recovery we have seen in the past. Now, we must both create jobs in new markets and industries as well as find employment for those whose skill base will not readily transfer to the new jobs platform(s).

A good example of this is the proposal by the Center for American Progress that outlines a plan to develop an energy efficiency industry to retrofit approximately 40 percent of the country’s buildings (approximately 50 million structures) within the next decade. This would require more than $500 billion in public and private investment and create over 600,000 “sustainable” jobs. Under the plan, energy use in those buildings would be reduced up to 40 percent and generate between $32 billion and $64 billion in annual consumer savings. Those savings would be used to re-pay the construction loans that would support the program.

This type of program would both create private sector jobs and help re-build U.S. infrastructure for the next five decades, all the while creating a buffer between the current economic environment and the one that will emerge.

One word of caution: we need a dozen or more initiatives of this kind to even come close to replacing the 8,000,000 lost jobs.

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.

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Source: OnlinePoliticalScience.org

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Summary:  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.  (This article, which appeared in a slightly differing form earlier this year, is written by Paul JJ Payack and Edward ML Peters.)

Austin, Texas, September 7, 2010 — Originally alluded to as a ‘Financial Tsunami’ or ‘Financial Meltdown,’ the major global media continue to call our current economic condition  ‘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’.

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 of the past — but rather a crisis of another sort.

In On War, one of the most influential books on military strategy of all time, the Prussian career soldier Carl von Clausewitz (1780 – 1831) stated 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’ and by other rules than those of the political and financial norm of the recent past.

We believe that the reason the “Great Recession” label doesn’t fit now is 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’ and by other rules than those of the political and financial norm of the recent past.

This fact is entrapping two US presidents, from radically diverging political viewpoints, in the same dilemma:  describing an economic phenomenon, that doesn’t play by the old rules.  Therefore the difficulty experienced by President Bush as he struggled to describe how the US 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 US economy is emerging out of a recession, though the collateral damage in terms of the evaporation of wealth, mortgages, and jobs remains apparently undaunted and unabated.

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 you carefully disassemble the events of the last decade or two, one 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 good 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 understand, or even explain, 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 realities 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 is 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 watch helplessly as the new global reality and re-alignments unfold.

In conclusion, it can be argued that the difficulty in naming the current economic crisis is the fact that is not an economic crisis at all but rather a transformational event involving the global transfer of wealth, power and influence, the destruction of entire industries along with the associated collateral (or human) damage.

[Read More.]

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Austin, Texas, July 2, 2010.  The first decade of the 21st century has witnessed a great many terrible, sad and historical events, with a few, unfortunately fleeting moments of great joy sprinkled between the dirges.  We have done our best to analyze the impact of these events on the global print and electronic media as well as on the Internet, throughout the blogosphere, and now the emerging social media.

After analyzing political speeches for a decade now, as well as all 55 Presidential Inaugural Addresses and transcripts of historical interest (including Washington’s Farewell Address, the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, FDR’s ‘Live in Infamy’ radio address, Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a Dream’ speech) you would think that we had seen and heard everything by now.

However, it wasn’t until our analysis of the President’s Gulf Spill Oval Office address, that we experienced the full force of the Internet’s fury scorned.

And this for an analysis that we considered basically non-newsworthy.

President Obama had given yet another address to the nation.  GLM used the same standardized, widely available, language tools that we used to name Obama’s Grant Park  ”Yes, we can!” victory address as one that ranked with the greatest of presidential orations.  Now these same standardized, time-tested tools are being conveniently criticized as of questionable repute.

We were told that our analysis was either ‘bashing Obama’ or ‘excusing Obama’. At the same time, we were either ‘insulting the people’ or ‘insulting the President’. Finally, it was suggested that we were rather transparently calling for the President to ‘dumb down the rhetoric’ so that one and all might understand  the superior intelligence of ‘his highness’.  Whoa!

Apparently, many readers never got over the headline, missing the actual analysis and what the numbers told us about the speech. Our concern was that our initial headline, Obama Oil Spill Speech Echoes Elite, Aloof Ethos might be considered demeaning to the President.  Wrong.  It was considered demeaning to everyone on the Left and the Right.

For general information on the readability tests used by GLM, click here.

For scientific literature about readability tests, enter Flesch or readability into the ERIC database.

We were surprised to learn that offense was, apparently,  taken in equal proportions by both the Right (Language Expert: If You Didn’t Like Obama’s Oil Spill Speech, It’s Probably Because You’re Stupid) and the Left (Obama Oil Spill Speech Criticized By CNN’s Language Analyst For Not Being Moronic Enough) of the political spectrum.   Nevertheless, we were quite amused by The ColbertReport’s send-up of our (and CNN’s) report, which somehow struck a middle chord.

It was also enlightening to see a significant proportion of this criticism to be ad hominem attacks, focusing on ourselves rather than our analysis.  (Read FAQ about GLM and Paul JJ Payack here.)

This past December, we encountered fierce criticism from the Chinese government dailies because  we named ‘The Rise of China” as the No. 1 news story of the decade.  (You can follow the narrative arc of this controversy here. )  But the criticism that accompanied the Obama Gulf Spill speech, was a good bit nastier, indeed.

Our analyses of the three preceding US Presidential elections were praised from many quarters from the New York Times to Nicholas Kristof to NPR to the worldwide media.  During the preceding ten years, few alleged political motivation, or denounced the standard language-measurement tools as inherently flawed. In fact, as long as readers basically agreed with the more predictable outcomes, there were few complaints.  Here were some of those results:  Ross Perot scored the lowest we’ve ever recorded, John F, Kennedy and Ronald Reagan were stars, both Bushes settled in the middle of the middle school years, and Obama’s ‘Yes, we can!’ speech had nearly equivalent numbers to Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream’ speech and Lincoln’s ‘Gettysburg Address’.   So far, so good.  We did have a few outliers, such as Sarah Palin achieving quite a high score during her debate with Joe Biden, which was duly noted by New York Magazine and quite easy to explain.

Here’s what we attempted to communicate:

1.  Obama’s speech, though deserving a ‘solid B’ did not live up to his past efforts.

2.  Obama’s most well-regarded speech came in a at 7.4 grade level.  This is not talking down to the American people.  This is communicating clear and concisely to his audience.  This is Obama at his best, communicating with a deft combination of vision, passion and rhetoric.

In fact, our headline for that effort read: Obama’s “Yes, We Can” Speech Ranked with “I have a Dream,” “Tear Down this Wall,” and JFK Inaugural. Rather high praise, indeed.

Our commentary read:

Obama’s “Yes, We Can” speech delivered Tuesday night in Chicago’s Grant Park ranked favorably in tone, tenor and rhetorical flourishes with memorable political addresses of the recent past including Martin Luther King, Jr.’s   “I have a Dream” speech, “Tear Down this Wall,” by Ronald  Reagan and John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address.

“As is appropriate for a forward-looking message of hope and reconciliation, words of change and hope, as well as future-related constructions dominated the address,” said Paul JJ Payack President and Chief Word Analyst of the Global Language Monitor.  “Evidently, Obama is at his best at connecting with people at the 7th to 8th grade range, communicating directly to his audience using simple yet powerful rhetorical devices, such as the repetition of the cadenced phrase ‘Yes, we can’, which built to a powerful conclusion.”

Well-regarded, indeed (and well-deserved).

3.   GLM and our predecessor site, yourDictionary.com have analyzed every presidential inaugural since that of George Washington.  The idea was, and continues to be, to look at the presidents’ words in the total historical context of the American presidency.

In 2001, we were quoted as saying,

Our goal was to spot trends that are all to easily overlooked in the political (and all too partisan) passions of the moment” [and continued that our] analysis included patterns of word usage choices, the use of such grammatical constructions as passive voice, the length of words and sentences, the number of paragraphs, and other parameters of language to gauge the content [including] the well-regarded Flesch-Kincaid Reading Scale.

4.  The use of Industry-standard language analytics.  The Fogg Index, the Flesch Test, the Flesch-Kinkaid Reading Scale, and many others, are used in all forms of publishing from technical manuals to ensuring proper comprehension levels for textbooks used for various ages and classes.  This has been true for more than fifty years.

The reason we choose to use the standard tests and analytical tools was a simple one:  to enable the same set of measurements over any period of time.  And also that these analyses could be replicated by scholars and historians and journalists the world over.

5.  We use our proprietary tool, the Predictive Quantities Indicator or PQI to measure media analytics, narrative tracking, and TrendTopper Media Buzz, as such we do not use the PQI for this task.

By the Way, here are a few historical precedents;

• Washington’s Farewell Address of 1796 — 12.0.
• Lincoln-Douglas debates, 1858 — Stephen Douglas’ seven speeches averaged a 12th-grade level 11.9; Lincoln’s averaged 11.2.
• President Franklin Roosevelt’s declaration of war in December 1941 — 11.5.
• Nixon-Kennedy Debates, 1960 — The first nationally televised debates:  Kennedy, 9.6 ; Nixon, 9.1.
• Carter-Ford Debates, 1976 — Carter, 10.4; Ford, 11.0.
• Carter-Reagan debate  – Carter, 12.0; Reagan, 10.7.
• Reagan-Mondale debates — Reagan, 9.8;  Mondale, 8.7.
• Dukakis-Bush debates of 1988 — Dukakis, 8.9; Bush, 6.7 grade.
• Bush-Clinton-Perot debates of 1992 — Carter, 8.5, Bush, 6.5, Perot, 6.3.
• Bush-Gore debate of 2000 — Bush, 7.1, Gore, 8.4.
• Cheney-Lieberman, V.P. Debate — Lieberman, 9.9; Dick Cheney, 9.1.

And for good measure, Hamlet’s ‘To Be or Not to Be Soliloquy’, Shakespeare, c. 1600, comes in at 10.6.

Now Kathleen Parker has considerably upped the ante when applied readability statistics in her premise about Barack Obama as the first ‘feminine president’ ….

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Summary:  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’.

Austin, Texas, April 16, 2010 — Originally alluded to as a ‘Financial Tsunami’ or ‘Financial Meltdown,’ the major global media seem to have gained a consensus as ‘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’.

“We believe the difficulty here stems from the fact that this economic crisis is difficult to express in words,” said Paul JJ Payack, president of the Global Language Monitor, “because it does not resemble any economic crisis of the past — but rather a crisis of another sort”.

In On War, one of the most influential books on military strategy of all time, the Prussian career soldier Carl von Clausewitz (1780 – 1831) stated 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’ and by other rules than those of the political and financial norm of the recent past.

We believe that the reason the “Great Recession” label doesn’t fit now is 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’ and by other rules than those of the political and financial norm of the recent past.

This fact is entrapping two US presidents, from radically diverging political viewpoints, in the same dilemma:  describing an economic phenomenon, that doesn’t play by the old rules.  Therefore the difficulty experienced by President Bush as he struggled to describe how the US 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 US economy is emerging out of a recession, though the collateral damage in terms of the evaporation of wealth, mortgages, and jobs remains apparently undaunted and unabated.

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 you carefully disassemble the events of the last decade or two, one 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 good 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 understand, or even explain, 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 realities 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 is 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 watch helplessly as the new global reality and re-alignments unfold.

In conclusion, it can be argued that the difficulty in naming the current economic crisis is the fact that is not an economic crisis at all but rather a transformational event involving the global transfer of wealth, power and influence, the destruction of entire industries along with the associated collateral (or human) damage.

By Paul JJ Payack and Edward ML Peters

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Tags: Fashion, Fashion Week, Lady Gaga, MObama
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Michelle Obama Falls from No.2 to No. 15

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Austin, TX February 2, 2010 – Lady GaGa, the enigmatic yet near ubiquitous performance artist, was declared the Top Fashion Buzzword of the upcoming season by the Global Language Monitor. This is the first time that a name has topped the GLM’s rankings. Immediately following were ‘leggins 2.0,’ ‘no pants,’ ‘off-shoulder,” and ‘chandlier’ as in earrings. Rounding out the Top Ten were the ‘boyfriend’ craze, ‘peek-a-boos,’ ‘camos’ as in camouflage, ‘Hippie Luxe,’ and ‘Armadillo’. Michelle Obama as a fashion icon was reflected in the term ‘Mobama. Mercedes Fashion Week for the fall 2010 collections begins on February 11^th in New York City, followed by the shows in the other major fashion capitals: London, Milan, and Paris.

Schott’s Vocab New York Times

“The relationship between Stefani Germanotta, the girl from Yonkers, and haute couture may not be intuitively obvious, until you realize that Stefani would soon grow into one Lady GaGa,” said Millie L. Payack, director and fashion correspondent of the Global Language Monitor. “The fact remains that the world of fashion has been duly impacted by her in ways some subtle and some rather profound.”

The words were chosen from the global fashion media and nominated by key fashionistas from around the world. This exclusive ranking is based upon GLM’s Predictive Quantities Index, a proprietary algorithm that tracks words and phrases in print and electronic media, on the Internet and throughout the blogosphere, now including social media. The words and phrases are tracked in relation to their frequency, contextual usage and appearance in global media outlets.

The Top Fashion Buzzwords with commentary follow:

1. Lady Gaga — Enigmatic performance artist has had outsized impact on the world of fashion.

2. Leggins 2.0 – Flourishing from Milano to Main Street, leggings are now differentiated as jeggings (jeans + leggings) and meggings (male leggings), and the like.

3. No pants – Hot pants for the 21^st Century; not much pant (see Lady GaGa).

4. Off-shoulder – One shoulder and Off-the-shoulder asymmetrics are now combined with cutouts, draping, or heritage stylings.

5. Chandeliers — Earrings, that is.

6. Boyfriend (the jacket, jeans etc) – It’s getting to be like an Audrey Hepburn movie out there with boyfriend jackets, jeans and the like.

7. Peek-a-boo – Peek-a-boo fashion is back once again; this time as cutouts.

8. Camos – Camouflage is back, this time with an Urban Jungle vibe.

9. Hippie-luxe – Haute Hippies? That’s the Hippie Luxe movement inspired by the 40^th anniversary of that classic New York Daily News headline: “600,000 Hippies Mired in Mud”.

10. Armadillos – Shaped like a lobster, made of Python, and called Armadillos — the highly controversial sculpted shoe designs of Alexander McQueen.

11. Mixed prints – Mixing various print in sometimes surprising ways: florals, tropicals, geometrics, polka dots, psychedelics, modernism-inspired, even plaids.

12. Embellishments – Delicate, all, including ruffles, transparency and tulle.

13. Ethical fashion – Echoes of PETA here. No furs, no armadillos, no leather.

14. Fashion 2.0 – Incorporating streaming techniques that bring designer showcases and shows to the buyers and consumers in real time.

15. MObama – OK, so she wears ‘mom’ jeans, but everyone seems to notice, after all Michelle is The Mobama.

Each July, the Global Language Monitor ranks the Top Fashion Cities of the Year ranked by Internet presence in a global survey. In 2009, Milan upended New York after a five-year reign as the Top Fashion Capital followed by New York, Paris, Rome and London. Other top movers included Hong Kong and Sao Paulo, who broke into the Top 10, while Barcelona and Miami surged. In the ever-tightening battle for the Subcontinent Mumbai outdistanced Delhi, while Sydney further outdistanced Melbourne.

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Milan Upends New York as Top Fashion Capital

Paris, Rome, London follow.

Hong Kong and Sao Paulo break into the Top 10

Barcelona and Miami surge. Mumbai outdistances Delhi.

Austin, Texas. July 20, 2009.   Milan has upended New York after a five year reign as the Top Fashion Capital in the Global Language Monitor’s annual global survey. Topping the list for 2009 were Milan, New York, Paris, Rome and London follow. Other top movers included Hong Kong and Sao Paulo, who broke into the Top 10, while Barcelona and Miami surged. In the ever-tightening battle for the Subcontinent Mumbai outdistanced Delhi, while Sydney further outdistanced Melbourne.

Read:  Milan Strides Past New York as World’s Fashion Capital (Reuters)

“The global economic restructuring has affected the fashion industry just as it has touched everything else,” said Millie L. Payack, director and fashion correspondent for the Global Language Monitor. “The catwalks were still crowded though with the lights dimmer, the hype a bit more restrained, and ‘recessionistas,’ of course, thriving”.

Though Milan dethroning New York, the Big Five (Milan, New York, Paris, Rome, and London) continued their domination of global fashion.

The world ‘rag’ business is estimated to be over three trillion USD. Regional rankings are provided below.

This exclusive ranking is based upon GLM’s Predictive Quantities Index, a proprietary algorithm that tracks words and phrases in print and electronic media, on the Internet and throughout the blogosphere. The words and phrases are tracked in relation to their frequency, contextual usage and appearance in global media outlets.

The Top Thirty Fashion Capitals, change from 2008 ranking, and commentary follow.

1. Milano (+3) – Not only overtakes New York but also Rome and Paris.

2. New York (-1) – Knocked out of Top Spot by Milano after a five-year run.

3. Paris (0) – No 1. in our hearts but No. 3 in the media.

4. Rome (-2) — The Eternal City still reigns strong.

5. London (0) – London remains the laggard of the Fashion Elite.

6. Los Angeles (0) – Holding its own at No. 6.

7. Hong Kong (+4) – Leaps over Sydney and Tokyo to seize the lead in Asia/Pacific.

8. Sao Paulo (+25) – A remarkable rise, now dominating the Latin-American scene.

9. Sydney (-2) – Solidly in the Top 10 while Melbourne sinks.

10. Las Vegas (-2) – Intense media spotlight ensures a top ranking.

11. Dubai (+1) – An unlimited budget continually exceeded.

12. Tokyo (-2) – Loses a bit of luster as it slips out of the Top 10.

13. Miami (+13) – Driven by its dominance in swimwear.

14. Barcelona (+11) – Takes the Iberian spotlight.

15. Shanghai (-2) — Now third in the China/Japan rivalry.

16. Mumbai (+6) – In neck-and-neck race for primacy on the Subcontinent.

17. New Delhi (+7) – Both Delhi and Mumbai break into Top 20.

18. Rio de Janeiro (+12) – Comes on strong but Sao Paulo is stronger.

19. Berlin (-10) – Hurt by weak showing in the ‘haute’ category.

20. Singapore (-6) – Fashion infrastructure strong, but hurt by the economy.

21. Madrid (-6) – Barcelona takes the Iberian crown.

22. Moscow (-6) – Remains strong as it drops out of the Top 20.

23. Santiago (-6) – Now third behind Sao Paulo and Rio in Latin America.

24. Buenos Aires (-4) – Strong in new interpretations of classic fashion.

25. Melbourne (-7) — Slips out of Top 20 as Sydney strives ahead.

26. Stockholm (-7) – Tops in Scandinavia with Copenhagen No. 2.

27. Bangkok (+7) – Breaks into the top tier of Asian Fashion.

28. Krakow (-1) – Hold an increasingly intriguing niche in Middle Europe.

29. Prague (-1) – Strengthening its position as a fashion capitol.

30. Mexico City (Not Listed) – First time on the list.

Others in the ranking in order: Dallas, Toronto, Montreal, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Frankfurt

Johannesburg, Cape Town, Atlanta

Regional Rankings:

Asia and Oceania: Hong Kong, Sydney, Tokyo, Shanghai, Singapore, Melbourne, Bangkok

Europe: Milano, Paris, Rome, London, Barcelona, Berlin, Madrid, Stockholm, (Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Frankfurt)

India: Mumbai, New Delhi

Latin America: Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago, Buenos Aries, Mexico City

Middle and Eastern Europe: Moscow, Krakow, Prague

Middle East and Africa: Dubai, (Johannesburg, Cape Town)

North America: New York, LA, Las Vegas, Miami, (Dallas, Toronto, Montreal, Atlanta)

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Chiconomics, Michele Obama, Sheer, Metallics, and Gladiator

Top FashionSpeak of Upcoming Fall/Winter 2009/10 Season

Austin, TX February 5, 2009 – Chiconomics, Michele Obama, Sheer, Metallics, and Gladiator were named the Top Fashion Buzzwords of the of Upcoming Fall/Winter 2009/10 Season by the Global Language Monitor.  New York Fashion Week begins February 12th.

The words were chosen from those gathered from the worldwide fashion media and nominated by key fashionistas. This exclusive ranking is based upon GLM’s Predictive Quantities Index, a proprietary algorithm that tracks words and phrases in print and electronic media, on the Internet and throughout the blogosphere. The words and phrases are tracked in relation to their frequency, contextual usage and appearance in global media outlets.

“The fashion world is affected by the global economic meltdown like everyone else this year and are reflected in this season’s buzzwords,” said Millie L. Payack, director and fashion correspondent of the Global Language Monitor.”  Another significant influence is that of Michele Obama as the first Lady of the United States, who already is subject of vast Internet and Blogosphere buzz.”

The Top Fashion Buzzwords with commentary, follow:

1.     Chiconomics – The drive to chicness remains strong though affected by economic crisis.

2.     Michele Obama – Michelle says ‘Yes, we can!’ to bringing back a sense of fashion to the White House; further popularizes the single-shoulder look.

3.     Sheer (not see-through, please!) – Though sheer is synonymous with see-through often to embarrassing results (See Renée Zellweger at the Golden Globes.)

4.     Metallics – Move over silver and gold this year it’s coppers and bronze as well as pewter tones.

5.     Gladiators – From chunky platforms to criss-crossed flats, one of the biggest shoe trends of the new century.

6.     Recessionista — Fashion designers, trend-setters and icons set out to weather the world economic crisis.

7.     Voluminous – As in volume-mungous.  Sometimes combined with the sheer look to dramatic results.

8.     Ferosh – A combination of ‘fierce’ and ‘ferociousness’ popularized by Project Runway’s Christian Siriano.

9.     Shoe Boot – Or booties, favored by fashion-forward A-listers.

10.  Lemongrass – The color of Ms. Obama’s Inauguration gown (designed by Isabel Toledo).

11.  Draping or Grecian or goddess – The Greco-Roman goddess look continues its 2500-year comeback.

12.  Eco-Fashion – Couture with carbon-offsetting properties; the Green movement has not invaded haute couture – yet.

13.  On Trend – The ’oh so trendy’ way to say trendy.

14.  Ethnicware – Also known as Multicutural.

15.  Fast Fashion – The successor to High Street; the ability to produce low-cost knock-offs, includes such retailers as H&M and Target.

16.  Fruit Salad (or Macedonian) – Mixed prints are big and bold.

17.  Tie-dyed Silk – Black silk is everywhere even in tie-dyed creations.

18.  Muffin Top fashion – No worries on the runway but a muffin top is seen  when the belly spills over the waistband in exposed ‘midriff’ fashion.

19.  Palettes – Including Mimosa (yellow) and Blue Iris (purple).

20.  Tribe – Fashion tribes are still en vogue whether hipsters or EMOs.

Each July, the Global Language Monitor ranks the Top Fashion Cities of the Year ranked by Internet presence in a global survey.    Topping the list for 2008 were New York, Rome, Paris, Milan, London, Los Angeles, Sydney, Las Vegas, Berlin and Tokyo.  Madrid (No. 15), Stockholm (No. 20), Cape Town (No. 23) and New Delhi (No. 24) broke into the Top 25.  Notble movement included Sydney moving up five spots to No.7 and Dubai jumping up twelve spots to No.12.

Top Fashion Cities of 2008 Named in Annual Survey

Austin, Texas.   July 15, 2008.   MetaNewsWire.  The Top Fashion Cities of 2007 have been named by the Global Language Monitor (www.LanguageMonitor.com) in its annual global survey.    Topping the list for 2008 are New York, Rome, Paris, Milan, London, Los Angeles, Sydney, Las Vegas, Berlin and Tokyo.  Madrid (No. 15), Stockholm (No. 20), Cape Town (No. 23) and New Delhi (No. 24) broke into the Top 25.  Falling off the list were Sao Paolo and Bangkok.

Other notable movement included Sydney moving up five spots to No.7 and Dubai jumping up twelve spots to No.12.

View the Reuters Fashion Capitals Slide Show and Story

“Our yearly rankings clearly reinforce recent trends:  the Big Five (New York, Rome, Paris, Milan, and London), far and away dominate the world of fashion, especially in the eyes of the print and electronic media, as well as on the internet.  At the same time, the second tier of the cities in the world fashion rankings are coming on strong,” said Millie Lorenzo Payack, Fashion Correspondent and Director of the Global Language Monitor.  “And, by the way, money spent on media outreach can, indeed, make a difference; witness Dubai.”   The world ‘rag’ business is estimated to be close to one half trillion USD.  Regional rankings are provided below.

The View from Italia

This exclusive ranking is based upon GLM’s Predictive Quantities Index, a proprietary algorithm that tracks words and phrases in print and electronic media, on the Internet and throughout the blogosphere. The words and phrases are tracked in relation to their frequency, contextual usage and appearance in global media outlets.

The Top Fashion Cities, 2008 ranking, last year’s rank, and commentary follow.

1. New YorkNo. 1 for the fifth year running.
2. Rome (2) – The Eternal City, again, a strong No. 2.
3. Paris (3) – Perhaps No. 1 in the world’s hearts and mind – but not the media’s.
4. Milan (5) – Overtakes London in this survey.
5. London (4) – The Elite Five far outdistance the rest.
6. Los Angeles (6) – LA knocks on the door of the Elite Five.
7. Sydney (12) – Sydney makes a huge move, breaking into the Top 10.
8. Las Vegas (9) – The intense media spotlight improves Vegas’ ranking.
9. Berlin (11) – Berlin continues its very strong presence.
10. Tokyo (6) – Tokyo remains the capital of the Asian Fashion Industry.
11. Hong Kong (8) – Threatening to move ahead of Tokyo.
12. Dubai (24) – Massive marketing fueled by petrodollars can make an impact.
13. Shanghai (14) – Vies with Hong Kong for the lead in China.
14. Singapore (10) – Significant fashion infrastructure keeps its ranking strong.
15. Madrid (New) – Reasserts the Iberian fashion lead over Barcelona.
16. Moscow (16) – Firmly ensconces itself in the Top Twenty.
17. Santiago (19) – Leads Latin America.
18. Melbourne (15) – Take a second seat to a high-flying Sydney.
19. Stockholm (New) – First Scandinavian on the list.
20. Buenos Aires (22) – Traditional leader in fashion continues to move up the rankings.
21. Johannesburg (23) – Joburg improves two spots.
22. Mumbai (18) – Mumbai again leads the Subcontinent.
23. Cape Town (New) – Joburg’s rival is new to the list.
24. New Delhi (New) – New Delhi makes the List, but still is outpaced by Bollywood.
25. Barcelona (13) – Still in the Top Twenty-five though Madrid has strong lead.
26. Miami (New) – Makes the list on its leadership in swimwear.
27. Krakow (25) – Shares the neo-Bohemian spotlight with Prague.
28. Prague (New) – No neo about this rising center of fashion.
29. Toronto (New) — First Canadian city on the list; Montreal just missed the rankings.
30. Rio de Janeiro (20) – Strong Latin American No. 3 outpacing Sao Paolo.

Others in the rankings included Copenhagen, Montreal, Sao Paolo, and Bangkok

Regional Rankings:

Asia and Oceania: Sydney, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Melbourne (Bangkok)

Europe: Rome, Paris, Milano, London, Berlin, Madrid, Stockholm, Barcelona (Copenhagen)

India: Mumbai, New Delhi

Latin America: Santiago, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro (Sao Paolo)

Middle and Eastern Europe: Moscow, Krakow, Prague

Middle East and Africa: Dubai, Johannesburg, Cape Town

North America: New York, LA, Las Vegas, Miami, Toronto (Montreal)

Top 25 Fashion Capitals of 2007 Named:

Former backwaters emerge on global scene

To See the Video Click Here

San Diego. August 1, 2007. (Updated) The Top Fashion Cities of 2007 have been named by the Global Language Monitor in its annual global survey. Topping the list for 2007 are New York, Rome, Paris, London, Milan, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Las Vegas, and Singapore. Breaking into the Top 25 were Berlin (No. 11), Shanghai (No, 14), Moscow (No. 16) and Dubai (No. 24). Other notable rankings included Shanghai at No. 14, Sydney and Melbourne at Nos. 12 and 15 respectively, and the Fashion Quartet of South America: Santiago, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Palo, and Buenos Aires. No. 25 was Krakow making the ranking apparently because of it emerging status as center of neo-Bohemian influence.

New York replaced Paris as the Fashion Capital of the world four years ago.

“The ranking is surprising in a number of ways, most of which relate to the changing nature of the Global Fashion Industry, said Millie Lorenzo Payack, Fashion Correspondent and Director of the Global Language Monitor. “Cities that recently would have been considered fashion backwaters – or worse, are now emerging as significant regional hubs.” This exclusive ranking is based upon GLM’s Predictive Quantities Index, a proprietary algorithm, that tracks words and phrases in the print and electronic media, on the Internet and throughout the blogosphere. The words and phrases are tracked in relation to their frequency, contextual usage and appearance in global media outlets.

Ranking and Commentary

1. New York — Far and away No.1 by every index

2. Rome — Beats out Paris, London and Milan

3. Paris — Heartbeat of the fashion world

4. London — Pulsing with creative energy

5. Milan — Perennial contender for No. 1

6. Tokyo — Gaining global influence

7. Los Angeles — Will Posh Spice impact Ranking?

8. Hong Kong — No. 1 in South Asia

9. Las Vegas — Emerging as vibrant fashion center

10. Singapore — Strong regional hub

11. Berlin — Big fashion push & its working

12. Sydney — OZ scores two in the Top 20

13. Barcelona — Regional center grows in stature

14. Shanghai — China breaks into the Big Time

15. Melbourne — Ranks a smidgen behind Sydney

16. Moscow — Lenin would not be amused

17. Bangkok — Realizing its dream

18. Mumbai — Indian fashion influences globe

19. Santiago — Major strides for a proud nation

20. Rio de Janeiro — More than Carnivale and Ipanema

21. Sao Paolo — Money and fashion DO mix

22. Buenos Aires — Seat of Classic Beauty returns

23. Johannesburg — A first for Africa

24. Dubai Dubai? — Yes, Dubai

25. Krakow — Neo-Bohemia thrives

The ‘Skirt With No Name’ Challenges Linguists — and the Fashion Elite

– Gypsy, Tiered, Flouncy, Bouncy, or Boho?

San Diego, Calif. August 6, 2005. The ‘Skirt With No Name’ has become a linguistic wonder since, unlike most mass-merchandized products with apparent global appeal — it has no name, or rather none generally accepted by the consumers, who have come up with a plethora of names to describe it. “It’s as if Motorola has introduced a new model of its popular ‘Moto’ phones or Toyota a new Lexus sedan only to have the consumer ignore the names bestowed upon them by their respective marketers and insist upon using their own particular favorite,” said Paul JJ Payack, President and the WordMan for the Global Language Monitor.

Preliminary analysis using the Global Language Monitors proprietary Predictive Quantities Indicator (PQI), have come up with the top names used to describe the apparel. Using this analysis, ‘tiered’ seems to have settled in as the most popular description followed by ‘peasant’, ‘gypsy,’ and ‘flouncy’. The PQI tracks specified words and phrases in the global print and electronic media and on the Internet. The words and phrases are tracked in relation to their frequency, contextual usage and appearance.

Apparently the skirt is selling well around the globe. It has been suggested that the skirt originated in Mexico, was inspired by the burgeoning Bollywood studios, is a throwback to California ’60s Hippie Culture, or the sudden ‘coolness’ of all things Gypsy.

“There has been a global groundswell of demand for The Nameless Skirt, after having been by-passed on the runways of Milano, Paris and New York,” said Millie Lorenzo Payack, Director and Fashion Correspondent of The Global Language Monitor, “And the fact that the ‘tiered skirt’ comes in such an unusually large number of variations that might be worn to work, dinner or dancing seems to account for the wide variation of names accorded the product”.

The complete list of names, and commentary, associated with the skirt follow.

1. Tiered — Though it’s not always tiered only adds to the confusion surrounding the name.

2. Peasant (sometimes Pioneer) — Throwback to California ’60s Hippie Culture.

3. Gypsy — A tribute to the current popularity of All Things Gypsy.

4. Flouncy — A favorite of teenage girls who favor the short, circle cut (from ‘flounce’ meaning fringe, frill, trim, edging, and furbelow).

5. Boho — The ‘Oh so cool’ description (from Bohemian).

6. Crinkled — Actually meaning ‘crinkle’ as in ‘wrinkle’.

7. Voile — Many ‘high-end’ shops favor the French mystique.

8. Gauze — A thin or transparent fabric with a loose, open weave.

9. Bollywood — As in ‘Hollywood,’ the Mumbai-based film industry in India.

10. Indian — As in Bollywood, though some associate with a Native American influence.

Read: The Gypsy Boho Phenomenon (UK)

Oh So! au courant Fashion Buzzwords

• Boho
• Bollywood
• Fashionista
• Juicy
• Confection
• The New Black
• Artisanal
• Fashion faux paux
• Flouncy
• Vintage
• Harajutu
• Atelier
• Rag trade
• Gypsy
• Sassy
• Who are you wearing?

Wardrobe Malfunction Selected ‘HollyWORD’ of the Year in Banner Year for Hollywood Impact on Language

• Parley Hollywood: Keira Invents aNew language (Sunday Mail: UK)
• Linguists Comb Stars for New Hollywood Phrases (Scripps Wire)
• New Words Hollywood Gave the English language (India)

Austin, TX December 9, 2009 – In an exclusive analysis performed by the Global Language Monitor, the Rise of China has been determined to be the Top News Story of the Decade followed by the Iraq War, the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks, the War on Terror, and the Death of Michael Jackson. Completing the Top Ten were the Election of Obama to US presidency, the Global Recession of 2008/2009, Hurricane Katrina, the War in Afghanistan, and the onset of the Financial Tsunami/Economic Meltdown. Rounding out the list were the Beijing Olympics, the South Asian Tsunami, the War against the Taliban, the Death of Pope John Paul II, and Osama bin-Laden eludes capture.

Chinese pundits saw GLM’s analysis “was partly aimed at trumpeting the so-called China threat.  The list is the latest sign of the US media’s change from China bashing to China flattery.”  Read how the story unfolded below.

The Original story in Beijing’s People’s Daily

The criticism from China Daily, the official government paper:  The Rise of the Dragon

The follow-up report from Wall Street Journal’s Beijing bureau

The Financial Times’ take on the debate

Chinese Economic Review:  The Hard Bigotry of Too-high Expectations

People’s Daily:  Chinese Ambassador to the UK summarizes China’s position

The methodology: The analysis factored in the number of citations over the course of the decade on the Internet, the blogosphere, including social media, as well as the top 50,000 print and electronic media sites.

“The rise of China to new economic heights has changed – and continues to challenge – the current international order,” said Paul JJ Payack, President and Chief Word Analyst of the Global Language Monitor. “It is with little surprise that its ongoing transformation has topped all other news stories in a decade bespotted by war, economic catastrophe, and natural disasters.”

Read Ben MacIntyre it in the Sunday Times (London):  Words that define the Noughties

Rank/News Story/Comment

1. Rise of China – The biggest story of the decade, outdistancing the No. 2 Internet story by 400%.

2. Iraq War — The buildup, the invasion, the hunt for the WMDs, and the Surge were top in print and electronic media outlets.

3. 9/11 Terrorist Attacks – The 9/11 Terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, DC seemed to set the tone for the new decade.

4. War on Terror – President George W. Bush’s response to 9/11.

5. Death of Michael Jackson – A remarkably high ranking considering that MJ’s death occurred in the final year of the decade.

6. Election of Obama to US presidency – The rallying cries of ‘hope’ and ‘Yes, we can!’ resulting in the historic election of an African-American to the US presidency.

7. Global Recession of 2008/9 – The on-going world economic restructuring as opposed to the initial ‘economic meltdown’ or ‘financial tsunami’.

8. Hurricane Katrina — New Orleans was devastated when the levies collapsed; scenes of death and destruction shocked millions the world over.

9. War in Afghanistan – Now in its eighth year with an expansion into neighboring Pakistan.

10. Economic Meltdown/Financial Tsunami – The initial shock of witnessing some 25% of the world’s wealth melting away seemingly overnight.

11. Beijing Olympics – The formal launch of China onto the world stage.

12. South Asian Tsunami – The horror of 230,000 dead or missing, washed away in a matter of minutes was seared into the consciousness the global community.

13. War against the Taliban – Lands controlled by the Taliban served as a safe haven from which al Qaeda would launch its terrorist attacks.

14. Death of Pope John Paul II – The largest funeral in recent memory with some 2,000,000 pilgrims in attendance.

15. Osama bin-Laden eludes capture – Hesitation to attack Tora Bora in 2002 has led to the continuing manhunt.

This analysis was completed on December 1, 2009 using GLM’s Predictive Quantities Indicator (PQI), the proprietary algorithm that tracks words and phrases in the media and on the Internet, now including blogs and social media. The words are tracked in relation to frequency, contextual usage and appearance in global media outlets, factoring in long-term trends, short-term changes, momentum and velocity.

The Global Language Monitor has recently named the Top Words of the Decade. They were Global Warming, 9/11, Obama, Bailout, Evacuee, and Derivative; Google, Surge, Chinglish, and Tsunami followed. “Climate Change” was top phrase; “Heroes” was top name.

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Rise of China Tops Iraq War and 9/11 as Top Story of Decade

.

.

Top News Stories of the Decade:

The Rise of China surpasses Iraq War and 9/11

.

Austin, TX December 9, 2009 – In an exclusive analysis performed by the Global Language Monitor, the Rise of China has been determined to be the Top News Story of the Decade followed by the Iraq War, the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks, the War on Terror, and the Death of Michael Jackson. Completing the Top Ten were the Election of Obama to US presidency, the Global Recession of 2008/2009, Hurricane Katrina, the War in Afghanistan, and the onset of the Financial Tsunami/Economic Meltdown. Rounding out the list were the Beijing Olympics, the South Asian Tsunami, the War against the Taliban, the Death of Pope John Paul II, and Osama bin-Laden eludes capture.

Chinese pundits saw GLM’s analysis “was partly aimed at trumpeting the so-called China threat.  The list is the latest sign of the US media’s change from China bashing to China flattery.”  Read how the story unfolded below.

The Original story in Beijing’s People’s Daily

The criticism from China Daily, the official government paper:  The Rise of the Dragon

The follow-up report from Wall Street Journal’s Beijing bureau

The Financial Times’ take on the debate

Chinese Economic Review:  The Hard Bigotry of Too-high Expectations

People’s Daily:  Chinese Ambassador to the UK summarizes China’s position

The methodology: The analysis factored in the number of citations over the course of the decade on the Internet, the blogosphere, including social media, as well as the top 50,000 print and electronic media sites.

“The rise of China to new economic heights has changed – and continues to challenge – the current international order,” said Paul JJ Payack, President and Chief Word Analyst of the Global Language Monitor. “It is with little surprise that its ongoing transformation has topped all other news stories in a decade bespotted by war, economic catastrophe, and natural disasters.”

Read Ben MacIntyre it in the Sunday Times (London):  Words that define the Noughties

Rank/News Story/Comment

1. Rise of China – The biggest story of the decade, outdistancing the No. 2 Internet story by 400%.

2. Iraq War — The buildup, the invasion, the hunt for the WMDs, and the Surge were top in print and electronic media outlets.

3. 9/11 Terrorist Attacks – The 9/11 Terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, DC seemed to set the tone for the new decade.

4. War on Terror – President George W. Bush’s response to 9/11.

5. Death of Michael Jackson – A remarkably high ranking considering that MJ’s death occurred in the final year of the decade.

6. Election of Obama to US presidency – The rallying cries of ‘hope’ and ‘Yes, we can!’ resulting in the historic election of an African-American to the US presidency.

7. Global Recession of 2008/9 – The on-going world economic restructuring as opposed to the initial ‘economic meltdown’ or ‘financial tsunami’.

8. Hurricane Katrina — New Orleans was devastated when the levies collapsed; scenes of death and destruction shocked millions the world over.

9. War in Afghanistan – Now in its eighth year with an expansion into neighboring Pakistan.

10. Economic Meltdown/Financial Tsunami – The initial shock of witnessing some 25% of the world’s wealth melting away seemingly overnight.

11. Beijing Olympics – The formal launch of China onto the world stage.

12. South Asian Tsunami – The horror of 230,000 dead or missing, washed away in a matter of minutes was seared into the consciousness the global community.

13. War against the Taliban – Lands controlled by the Taliban served as a safe haven from which al Qaeda would launch its terrorist attacks.

14. Death of Pope John Paul II – The largest funeral in recent memory with some 2,000,000 pilgrims in attendance.

15. Osama bin-Laden eludes capture – Hesitation to attack Tora Bora in 2002 has led to the continuing manhunt.

This analysis was completed on December 1, 2009 using GLM’s Predictive Quantities Indicator (PQI), the proprietary algorithm that tracks words and phrases in the media and on the Internet, now including blogs and social media. The words are tracked in relation to frequency, contextual usage and appearance in global media outlets, factoring in long-term trends, short-term changes, momentum and velocity.

The Global Language Monitor has recently named the Top Words of the Decade. They were Global Warming, 9/11, Obama, Bailout, Evacuee, and Derivative; Google, Surge, Chinglish, and Tsunami followed.“Climate Change” was top phrase; “Heroes” was top name.

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.

English has become the first truly global language with some 1.58 billion speakers as a first, second or auxiliary language. Paul JJ Payack examines its impact on the world economy, culture and society in A Million Words and Counting (Citadel Press, New York, 2009).

The current estimate for the number of words in the English Language stands at 1,002,116.

For more information, call 1.925.367.7557, send email to info@LanguageMonitor.com, or visit www.LanguageMonitor.com.

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