Google search finds more than 2.5 million citations for the word
(CNN) — An event as big as a volcano that disrupts transportation around the globe might be expected to have its name added to the English lexicon, perhaps meaning “to cause widespread disruption,” an English-language monitor said Tuesday.
“People talk about a ‘Krakatau,’ right?” said Paul JJ Payack, president and chief word analyst of the Global Language Monitor, in a telephone interview. He was referring to the 1883 eruption of a volcano in Indonesia that unleashed a tsunami that killed more than 34,000 people.
Payack’s Austin-Texas-based monitor analyzes and catalogues trends in word usage and word choices and their impact on culture, with an emphasis on English.
“Tsunami” itself has gained in usage since the 2004 South Asia event that left 245,000 people dead or missing across the region, said Payack.
“When prices collapsed economically, the first thing that they called it was an ‘economic tsunami,’” he said.
But what happens when that volcano’s name is Eyjafjallajokull, as in the Icelandic volcano whose ash clouds have grounded thousands of flights worldwide?
Payack was not optimistic. “I’ve never heard anybody pronounce it right yet, and I couldn’t even try,” he said.
“There are very few words that appear millions of times in print yet can be pronounced by so few.”
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— Paul J.J. Payack, president of Global Language Monitor
Summary: What we are experiencing is not a recession, neither great nor small, but rather a global transference of wealth, power and prestige on an unprecedented level, carried out, in von Clausewitz’s words ‘by other means’.
Austin, Texas, April 16, 2010 — Originally alluded to as a ‘Financial Tsunami’ or ‘Financial Meltdown,’ the major global media seem to have gained a consensus as ‘The Great Recession’. In the beginning, most comparisons were being made to the Great Economic Depression of the 1930s, more familiarly known, simply, as ‘The Depression’ in the same way that many still refer to World War II as ‘The War’. But even these comparisons frequently ended up referring to the recession of 1982, yet another so-called ‘Great Recession’.
“We believe the difficulty here stems from the fact that this economic crisis is difficult to express in words,” said Paul JJ Payack, president of the Global Language Monitor, “because it does not resemble any economic crisis of the past — but rather a crisis of another sort”.
In On War, one of the most influential books on military strategy of all time, the Prussian career soldier Carl von Clausewitz (1780 – 1831) stated one of his most respected tenets, “War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means,” which is frequently abbreviated to “War is diplomacy carried out by other means’ and by other rules than those of the political and financial norm of the recent past.
We believe that the reason the “Great Recession” label doesn’t fit now is because what we are experiencing is not a recession, neither great nor small, but rather a global transference of wealth, power and prestige on an unprecedented level, carried out ‘by other means’ and by other rules than those of the political and financial norm of the recent past.
This fact is entrapping two US presidents, from radically diverging political viewpoints, in the same dilemma: describing an economic phenomenon, that doesn’t play by the old rules. Therefore the difficulty experienced by President Bush as he struggled to describe how the US economy was not in a recession since the GDP had not declined for two consecutive quarters, the traditional definition of a recession, even though jobs were being shed by the millions and the global banking system teetered on the brink of collapse. Now we have President Obama, attempting to describe how the US economy is emerging out of a recession, though the collateral damage in terms of the evaporation of wealth, mortgages, and jobs remains apparently undaunted and unabated.
The regional or global transfer of wealth, power and influence, the destruction of entire industries and the so-called collateral (or human) damage are all hallmarks of what is now being experienced in the West.
If you carefully disassemble the events of the last decade or two, one can see them as the almost inevitable conclusion of a nameless war that began with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the embrace of a form of the free-market system by China, India and the other rising states, an almost unprecedented transfer of wealth from the Western Economies to the Middle East (Energy) and South and East Asia (manufactured good and services), and the substantial transfer of political power and influence that inevitably follows.
It currently appears that the Western Powers most affected by these transfers cannot adequately understand, or even explain, their present circumstances in a way that makes sense to the citizenry, let alone actually reverse (or even impede) the course of history. In fact the larger realities are playing out while the affected societies seemingly default to the hope that they ultimately can exert some sort of control over a reality that is out of their grasp and control.
The good news here is that the transfers of wealth, power and influence has proven relatively bloodless but nonetheless destructive for the hundreds of millions of those on the front lines of the economic dislocations.
And it is in this context that the perceived resentment of the Islamic and Arab states should be more clearly viewed. This is especially so as they watch helplessly as the new global reality and re-alignments unfold.
In conclusion, it can be argued that the difficulty in naming the current economic crisis is the fact that is not an economic crisis at all but rather a transformational event involving the global transfer of wealth, power and influence, the destruction of entire industries along with the associated collateral (or human) damage.
60% of new words in 2009 Collegiate were born before today’s college students
‘New’ words average age — 29 years
Austin, TX July 16, 2009, (MetaNewswire) – Is Merriam-Webster its own worst frenemy? The answer to that question can perhaps be answered by the upcoming release of its Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition with the addition of almost 100 new words and word meanings (or senses). The average of these “new words” is twenty-nine years, according to Merriam-Webster’s itself. [Read more.]
Analysis: Seismic Shift to Internet in the Reporting
.of News as Evidenced by Death of Michael Jackson
“The Death of Michael Jackson has become a case study in the growing disparity between the mainstream global media and their newer Internet incarnations,” said Paul JJ Payack, President and Chief Word Analyst of the Global Language Monitor.
“The world has, indeed, witnessed a seismic shift in the reporting, analysis, and selection of news as evidenced by the recent death of Michael Jackson. In this regard, it appears as if the people have ‘voted with their clicks’ that the Internet is now an equal (if not senior) partner to the global print and electronic media.
Austin, TX July 9, 2009– In an exclusive analysis performed by the Global Language Monitor, the death of Michael Jackson, the entertainment icon, has been found to be the Top Funeral in the Global Print and Electronic Media over the last dozen years . Jackson moved ahead of Pope John Paul II, whose funeral in 2005 previously set the standard.
The results follow:
Michael Jackson, June 25 – July 8, 2009
Pope John Paul II, April 2 – April 9, 2005
Ronald Reagan, June 5 – June 10, 2004
Mother Teresa, September 5 – September 14, 1997
Princess Diana, August 31 – September 7, 1997
The death, aftermath, and funeral of Michael Jackson had some 18% more stories in the global print and electronic media than that of Pope John Paul II in 2005. The analysis covered the Top 5,000 print and electronic media sites, but excluded blogs and social media since they did not have a significant presence throughout the entire period of measurement.
“The death of Michael Jackson, and the media frenzy surrounding of its aftermath and his funeral, has moved Michael Jackson to the forefront of coverage of similar prominent deaths over the last dozen years,” said Paul JJ Payack, president and chief word analyst of GLM. Other prominent passings include those of Pope John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, Princess Diana and Mother Teresa. “The strength (and depth) of the global media coverage only adds to his already significant legacy and shows no sign of abetting.”
When measured in terms total web presence, Jackson outdistances Ronald Reagan, at No. 2, by more a factor of 10.
The results follow:
Michael Jackson, died in 2009
Ronald Reagan, died in 2004
Pope John Paul II, died in 2005
Princess Diana, died in 1997
Mother Teresa, died in 1997
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Jackson Joins yet another Hall of Fame
Michael Jackson Death No. 2 Internet Story of 21st Century
Internet No. 2 (to Obama’s Election); Mainstream Media Ranking No.9
Austin, TX June 29, 2009 (MetaNewswire) - The death of Michael Jackson, the entertainment icon, is now one of the top stories of the 21st century, according to a analysis released by the Global Language Monitor (www.LanguageMonitor.com). In the 72 hours after his death, Jackson jumped to the No. 9 spot for the global print and electronic media. For Internet, blogs and social media, Jackson jumped to the No.2, only trailing the election of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States. The results showed the growing disparity between the mainstream global media, and what is playing out for news on the Internet, and beyond.
The citations for Michael Jackson in the Mainstream Media numbered in the thousands; his citations on the Internet, and beyond numbered in the millions. The analysis tracked news stories within the first seventy-two hours after the event. The events include in descending order of Internet citations include: The Obama election, the death of Michael Jackson, the Iraq War, the Beijing Olympics, the Financial Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, the death of Pope John Paul II, the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks and the Asian Tsunami.
Citations for the election of Barack Obama are five times greater than that of No. 2, Michael Jackson. In turn, the death of Michael Jackson is cited more than double than those for the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003.
“The death of Michael Jackson has resulted in a global media event of the first order” said Paul JJ Payack, president and chief word analyst of GLM. “The fact that he has broken into the top media events of the 21st century is a testament to the global impact of the man and his music.”
There are 10,000 other stories hailing the arrival of the 1,000,000th word from Abu Dhabi, and Tehran, to Beijing, to Sydney, to Chicago and Sri Lanka.
‘Millionth English word’ declared
A US web monitoring firm has declared the millionth English word to be Web 2.0, a term for the latest generation of web products and services.
Matt Frei reports on English’s unique linguistic evolution and then spoke to Global Language Monitor’s Paul Payack who helped find this millionth English word.
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