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Be it the R-word or the four-letter word, nowadays everything revolves weirdly around the world wide web. So when it comes to the selection of the millionth word in English, it was natural for the cyber space and information technology to get its due share in the shortlist in the run up for the rare distinction.

While there were three words from the technology front, Internet also got the same number of words in the shortlist.

The Global Language Monitor, an Internet media analytics company that documents, analyzes, and tracks 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, announced that the English language will cross the 1mn word threshold on June 10, 2009 at 10:22 am Stratford-Upon-Avon time.

The monitor also announced the finalists for the Million Word March.

The words related to technology were cloud computing, N00b (from the Gamer Community; a neophyte in playing a particular game; used as a disparaging term) and sexting (you got it right its sending email or text messages with sexual content).

And from the Internet lingo three other words were there: de-follow (no longer following the updates of someone on a social networking site), de-friend (no longer following the updates of a friend on a social networking site; much harsher than de-following) and web 2.0, the next generation of web services.

There was also a French word le courriel, which means email.

Of course, words like financial tsunami, green washing, carbon neutral, e-vampire, etc, were also there.

Finally on June 10, web 2.0 was crowned as the one millionth word or phrase in the English language, although other linguists slammed it as nonsense and a stunt. Web 2.0 appeared over 25,000 times in searches and was widely accepted, making it the legitimate, one millionth word. It started out as a technical term meaning the next generation of world wide web products and services but had crossed into far wider circulation in the last six months.

Leaving IT behind, when we come to the Indian perspective, there is something to be really proud of. Like the rags-to-riches story of the hero in Oscar winning Slumdog Millionaire, the word slumdog has also found a place in the race for the millionth word status, along with Jai Ho, of course.

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