The English language acquired its one millionth word today.
Sort of.
According to the Global Language Monitor, a website that uses a math formula to estimate how often words are created, Web 2.0 was added at 5:22 AM ET, making it the one-millionth word in the English language.
Need I point out that Web 2.0 isn’t an actual word but a phrase used to describe the social nature of the current iteration of the internet?
Or that the “word” Web 2.0 is about four years old? Why has it taken so long for this word to officially creep into the English language, especially at a time when Web 3.0, or the semantic web, threatens to replace it?
And if we’re going to be foolish enough to characterize terminology like Web 2.0 as a word, could we at least ensure that the millionth word is an actual word, absent of digits and decimal points?
Couldn’t we have left Web 2.0 for the one millionth and one word?
