![\"Twitter](\"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/Twitter.png\" "\\"Twitter")
The end of the year is always a big time for awards \u2013 and the world of languages is no exception.<\/p>\nThe end of the year is always a big time for awards \u2013 and the world of languages is no exception.<\/p>\n
\u2018Unfriend\u2019<\/a> was recently pronounced \u2018Word of the Year 2009\u2019 by the New Oxford American Dictionary, and now \u2018Twitter\u2019<\/a> has been named top by the Global Language Monitor<\/a> (you may remember them from this post<\/a>).<\/p>\n Twitter beat \u2018Obama\u2019<\/a> and \u2018H1N1\u2019<\/a> (the official name for swine flu), with \u2018stimulus\u2019<\/a> and \u2018vampire\u2019<\/a> rounding out the top 5. <\/p>\n Interestingly, the Global Language Moniter\u2019s president commented on the wider implications of the word:<\/p>\n Mr. Payack guessed that \u201cTwitter\u201d took top billing in 2009 because of its effect on the way people communicate. \u201cThe impact that it\u2019s having now is that spelling is changing,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s forcing people to think about what is a word, and how to present that word when you\u2019re writing it down. Twitter will have an effect on language in years to come, if it remains as important as it is now.\u201d (Source: Wall Street Journal<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Do you agree with Mr. Payack? Is Twittering affecting the way you use words?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The end of the year is always a big time for awards \u2013 and the world of languages is no exception. \u2018Unfriend\u2019 was recently pronounced \u2018Word of the Year 2009\u2019 by the New Oxford American Dictionary, and now \u2018Twitter\u2019 has been named top by the Global Language Monitor (you may remember them from this post). […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,35,44],"tags":[302,446,441,443,25,442,13,444,31,447,399,445,401,44],"class_list":["post-519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-events","category-words","tag-communication","tag-economic-stimulus","tag-global-language-monitor","tag-h1n1","tag-languages","tag-obama","tag-spelling","tag-swine-flu","tag-twitter","tag-twittering","tag-unfriend","tag-vampire","tag-word-of-the-year","tag-words"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":521,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519\/revisions\/521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}