Google named 'word of the decade'

Google named 'word of the decade'

LONDON: Google has been named the word of the decade by a group of American speech scholars.

In its annual Word of the Year vote, the American Dialect Society (ADS) said that the word 'tweet', derived from sending a short message via Twitter (noun) and the act of sending such a message (verb) was the top word of 2009, reports the Telegraph.

The society said the use of the word Google, a verb that means to "to search the Internet", came because almost everybody in the world uses the term today.

The ADS chooses words for their recent prominence or notability in American English.

Other word-of-the-year nominees included 'H1N1' (the virus that causes swine flu) and 'Dracula sneeze', which is covering one's mouth with the crook of one's elbow when sneezing.

Nominees for word of the decade included '9/11,' 'blog,' 'green,' 'text,' 'war on terror,' and 'Wi-Fi.'

Both words are, in the end, products of the Information Age, where every person has the ability to satisfy curiosity and to broadcast to a select following, both via the Internet," Grant Barrett, chair of the society's new words committee, said of the winning words.

I really thought 'blog' would take the honours in the word of the decade category, but more people Google than blog don't they? Plus, many people think 'blog' just sounds ugly. Maybe Google's trademark lawyers would have preferred it, anyway," Barrett added.

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