‘Spillcam’, the coinage for the oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico, and horn pipe ‘Vuvuzela’ that shot into fame during the FIFA World Cup have been named the top words of 2010 by a group that analyses language usage while Chinese leader Hu Jintao is the year’s top name.
The Global Language Monitor (GLM) also announced ‘anger and rage’ as the top phrase.
Spillcam and vuvuzela, followed by ‘Narrative’, ‘Refudiate’, and ‘Guido’ ‘Deficit’, ‘Snowmageddon’, ‘3-D’, ‘Shellacking’ and ‘Simplexity’, rounded out the Top 10.
“Our top words this year come from an environmental disaster, the World Cup, political malapropisms, new senses to ancient words, a booming economic colossus and a heroic rescue that captivated the world for days on end. This is fitting for a relentlessly growing global language that is being taken up by thousands of new speakers each and every day,” said Paul J. J. Payack, president of GLM.
The words were culled from throughout the English-speaking world, which now numbers more than 1.58 billion speakers.
Following ‘Anger and Rage’ in the phrase category are ‘Climate Change’, ‘The Great Recession’, ‘Teachable Moment’, ‘Tea Party’, ‘Ambush Marketing’, ‘Lady Gaga’, ‘Man Up’, ‘Pass the bill to be able to see what’s in it’ and ‘Obamamania’.
Besides, Hu, the other top names are ‘iPad’, ‘Barack Obama’, ‘Chilean Coal Miners’, ‘Eyjafjallajoekull’, ‘Nancy Pelosi’, ‘Sarkozy’, ‘Tea Party’, ‘Jersey Shore’ and ‘David Cameron and Nick Clegg’.
In 2009, the top word was ‘Twitter’, the top phrase ’King of Pop’ and Barack Obama the top name.
