LH Confidential: Thanks a million for new word

Jun 19 2009 by Lorraine Howard, Irvine Herald

I BET the staff at the Oxford Dictionary were left flat with the much anticipated millionth word to hit the English language.

The champagne would probably still be left on ice as “Web 2.0” was said for the first time.

Talk about an anti-climax.

And is it really a new word?

The proclamation was made by a Texas-based internet company who say it means: “the next generation of worldwide web products.”

The Oxford English Dictionary tells me that the word ‘web’ has been around since the beginning of the 8th century, when it meant: “Woven fabric; spec. a whole piece of cloth in process of being woven or after it comes from the loom.” Nowadays, we think more of the worldwide variety WWW.

And the digits ‘2.0’ have been around even longer, since the revolutionary decimal Hindu-Arabic numeral system was invented in India in the middle of the sixth century – but surely they’re a number, not a word.

Just a word behind this millionth word was “slumdog” popularised by the Oscar smash and now accepted in our language.

And just behind that was my favourite new word, “chiconomic” meaning someone who shops for fashion items during a recession – but isn’t that what Primark was invented for?