1,000,000th Word

The English language, which adds about 14 words per day, is the largest language on the planet.  And at 5:22 a.m. ET the one millionth words was added.  It was…(drum roll please)…“Web 2.0”.  

Really? 

“Did I hear a niner in there?”

A word shouldn’t have numbers in it. 

Wouldn’t Web 2.0 be a name or a phrase?  But not a word.

 

And it’s amazing what does get classified as a word.

Obamamania.

n00b.

Wardrobe Malfunction.  Isn’t this a phrase? 

Carbon neutral.  Again isn’t that a phrase?

 

If combined words count as a word, shouldn’t we have at least a million words just in numbers?  Twenty-one would be a word. One-hundred twenty-one would be another. One-hundred-thousand two-hundred twenty one would be another.

 

And what about words with multiple meanings are they counted multiple times?

How about bat, as in the noun describing a baseball bat?  Is that one?

And what about the verb bat, describing what you do with a baseball bat?  Is that two?

Also, there is the verb bat, as in when a woman bats her eyes at her beau; is that three?

There is also the flying nocturnal mammal; would that be four?

And does the combine words baseball and bat (baseball bat) count as another?

 

And to make it even more confusing and asinine take the word Jai Ho.  It’s a Hindu word used as an exclamation for victory.  It a word from another language.  We complete took a word from another language and made it our own.  Why not just take every word ever spoken, from any language and make it our own.  We’d have a few million words then.

 

You know what, forget it.  I was going to throw a great big party in light of the one millionth word, yea! for the millionth English word, but no more!   

Counting our English words is just stupid.

 

Oh.  One more thing.  I like how the article (Linked above but re-linked for your convenience.  I know I’m a nice guy.) made it clear that the English language contains more words “than any other language on the planet”.  That’s awesome!  An article on the English language leaving the possibility of life on other planets open.  Because we wouldn’t want to offend the intelligent life on other planets who have a larger vocabulary than ours. 

 

Good grief.