"n00b" Beaten Out as One Millionth Word

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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"n00b" Beaten Out as One Millionth Word


Despite predictions, the honor of becoming the one millionth word in the English language will not go to "n00b" but will instead be awarded to a word that's possibly even less legitimate: "Web 2.0."

That's right, "Web 2.0" has been named the one millionth word in the English language by the potential millionth word [http://www.languagemonitor.com/] back in May, wound up coming in 999,998th.

Other words beat out for the top spot include "recessionista," "sexting," "octomom" and "slumdog," as did the non-English terms "Chengguan" and "Jai Ho!" In fact, questions about what constitutes a legitimate English word, complicated by compound words, obsolete terms and other issues, led University of California at Berkeley [http://berkeley.edu/] Linguistics Professor Geoffrey Nunberg to dismiss the ranking entirely. "I think it's pure fraud," he said. "It's not bad science. It's nonsense."

But Global Language Monitor President Paul Payack defended the process and its value. "If you want to count the stars in the sky, you have to define what a star is first and then count," he said. "Our criteria is quite plain and if you follow those criteria you can count words. Most academics say what we are doing is very valuable."

Founded in 2003, the Global Language Monitor estimates that one new word is added to the English language every 98 minutes; the one million word threshold was crossed at 10:22 am GMT on June 10. And the march continues inexorably forward: The 1,000,001st word has already been determined as "financial tsunami."

Source: Reuters [http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE55913M20090610?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews]


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ElArabDeMagnifico

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Dec 20, 2007
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Heck you'd be surprised at what is already in the dictionary. They added "Grrl", "muggle" and "Gaydar" to the dictionary for fucks sake.
 

Keane Ng

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Sep 11, 2008
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I'm not going to argue with the validity of Web 2.0 as a word or idea, but isn't it kind of silly as it'll be automatically outdated whenever Web 3.0 comes along?

Cpt_Oblivious said:
Yea, what does Web 2.0 mean?
It's kind of a catchall for social/user-oriented web stuff - you know, YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia - that kind of thing. That's Web 2.0.
 

ThaBenMan

Mandalorian Buddha
Mar 6, 2008
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... that's not even a word, it's more of a phrase.

EDIT: Oh jeez, I didn't even read about "financial tsunami". That is most definitely 2 words.
 

The Shade

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Mar 20, 2008
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Keane Ng said:
I'm not going to argue with the validity of Web 2.0 as a word or idea, but isn't it kind of silly as it'll be automatically outdated whenever Web 3.0 comes along?
And when, pray tell, will this momentous occasion arrive?

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I say that if Web 2.0 is going to be accepted as an English word, then company names and other proper nouns have to go in the dictionary, too.

Thus forcing us to make all dictionaries digital, as no one would pay to print the massive tome that would be required to include all proper nouns.
 

fenrizz

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Feb 7, 2009
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Keane Ng said:
I'm not going to argue with the validity of Web 2.0 as a word or idea, but isn't it kind of silly as it'll be automatically outdated whenever Web 3.0 comes along?

Cpt_Oblivious said:
Yea, what does Web 2.0 mean?
It's kind of a catchall for social/user-oriented web stuff - you know, YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia - that kind of thing. That's Web 2.0.
really? I could swear it was just plain old internet...

xmetatr0nx said:
Good, there is yet hope in humanity.

Honestly though i really could care less, i just feel "noob" is such a dumb word used by angry teens who get beat in counter strike by anyone who doesnt play it 9 hours a day.
Actually, the word noob has a pretty accurate meaning. And no, it's not people that don't play 9hrs a day.

Urban Dictionary said:
Contrary to the belief of many, a noob/n00b and a newbie/newb are not the same thing. Newbs are those who are new to some task* and are very beginner at it, possibly a little overconfident about it, but they are willing to learn and fix their errors to move out of that stage. n00bs, on the other hand, know little and have no will to learn any more. They expect people to do the work for them and then expect to get praised about it, and make up a unique species of their own.
 

DaxStrife

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Nov 29, 2007
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While I can't say I would have preferred "n00b" to be a legitimate word, I can't say I'm fond of "web 2.0" because I've never heard anyone use that term. Ever.
 

Hamster at Dawn

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Mar 19, 2008
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Firstly, I've never heard anyone use the phrase "Web 2.0" but it's suddenly appeared as a legitimate word when "n00b" has been around for ages. Or has "noob" and other spellings already been in there? Also, "Web 2.0" is not really a word, it's multiple words which is generally known as a phrase. Same with "financial tsunami" which is definitely two separate words. If you're going to put that in as a word you might as well include "The cat sat on the mat", "I had your mum last night" and the whole of the Bible.
 

wrshamilton

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Aug 30, 2007
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Oh my god, stop reporting this nonsense story from this PR-craving moron about nothing at all. There isn't a number of words in the English language. If there were, that number wouldn't be obtained by reference to a dictionary.

You even employed the he said/but he said trick of pretending to employ objectivity without bothering to know anything about the subject on which you're reporting. You include a quote from someone saying this is nonsense, but still manage to craft the headline as if it's a factual assertion.

Zombie invasion would be better than this seriously
 

randommaster

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Sep 10, 2008
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First of all, that's thre words that alredy exist, making it a phrase.

Secondly, n00b being the millionth word would have been s much more fun to watch as the english scholars heads explode.