What do e-mails, text messages, and emoticons contribute to the language? Let WordMan Paul J. Payack take you on a global tour of English-speaking worlds--virtual and otherwise: Podcast, Chinglish, truthiness, crunk. Just a year or two ago, these words were gibberish to most English speakers. Today they pop up in everyday conversation worldwide, just four of the ten thousand new words added to the English language every year. Spurred by the universality of the Internet--where it is the de facto lingua franca--and the global reach of its media, English is growing at a rate unprecedented in its year history.
Indeed, in the spring of , the English word count surpassed a million--over ten times the number available in French. At the crest of this linguistic tsunami surfs Paul J. Payack, aka the WordMan. As president of the Global Language Monitor, he has tracked the latest developments--the fascinating hybrids, the bizarre etymologies, the lasting malapropisms--in the language shared by two billion of the Earth's citizens. Aided by a worldwide network of similarly obsessed "language mavens" and armed with his own powerful word-counting algorithm, Payack ensures that no new English word falls from the tongue or marks the page without being counted toward the Million Word March.
A Million Words and Counting is a celebration of the vast variety and ever-evolving expressiveness of humanity's most universal language. Fun and informative, this guide is a joyful exploration of English as it spreads across the globe, as it is spoken today, and as it expands into the future. Each entertaining chapter of this ambitious linguistic survey examines another source of new English, including Hollywood, youth culture, other languages, corporate boardrooms, and tongue-tied presidents.
An engaging compendium of English-language facts and factoids, this is a trivia lover's goldmine and a logophile's playground. Read more Read less. Kindle Cloud Reader Read instantly in your browser. Payack is a Harvard-educated word maven who is president of the Global Language Monitor and yourDictionary.
The two sites he operates receive 30 million page views a month and are used as resources by major universities and other institutions worldwide.
"A Million Words and Counting" How Global English Is Rewriting the World
He currently resides with his wife and family in San Diego. Product details File Size: Citadel May 1, Publication Date: May 1, Sold by: Share your thoughts with other customers. Write a customer review. Showing of 2 reviews. Top Reviews Most recent Top Reviews. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. I strongly recommend against buying this book. Paul Payack is not a linguist.
His "Predictive Qualities Indicator," a proprietary algorithm that supposedly analyzes language in media, is nothing more than a common word count tool with a rip-off of the Flesch-Kincaid Readability test.
"A Million Words and Counting" How Global English Is Rewriting the World
Visit his web site for yourself [ He likes to talk a lot about politicians and the passive voice. On the "'08 Election" page of his web site, he gives the sentence "There will be setbacks" as an example of passive voice. That is NOT passive voice; It's an active-voice existential progressive construction. Payack fancies himself as "The Word Man," but he can't distinguish between passive and progressive voice. This book was such a wonderful read. With every page, I learned something new about the English Language.
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I had no idea that all these "different" cultures spread out over the globe are connected in such a basic way with the English language! This book was filled wonderful facts, insightful comments, fun tidbits, and hilarious "'isms. I still do not understand how he was out president for eight years, but these funny "'isms" that came out of it, are the necessary laughs we needed!
Also, there are little gray boxes throughout the book that have extra facts. Everyone must check out the "not of shred of truth" gray box.
- The Last Time.
- Magnificence;
- Hockey Canadas Learn All About Hockey: Color and Activity (Rule 1, Sports Color and Activity Books)!
- Navigating the Financial Blogosphere: How to Benefit from Free Information on the Internet;
I am a big history buff, so this information was right up my alley. You truly do learn such wonderful information in this book! My roommate works in the financial world. So after readying the section about "corporate speak," I tried my new found knowledge on her.
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And where are all these new words coming from? How do world events--from tsunamis and hurricanes to political doublespeak and presidential linguistic bumbling--influence the words we use on a daily basis? What do e-mails, text messages, and emoticons contribute to the language? Let WordMan Paul J. Payack take you on a global tour of English-speaking worlds--virtual and otherwise: Podcast, Chinglish, truthiness, crunk.
Just a year or two ago, these words were gibberish to most English speakers. Today they pop up in everyday conversation worldwide, just four of the ten thousand new words added to the English language every year. Spurred by the universality of the Internet--where it is the de facto lingua franca--and the global reach of its media, English is growing at a rate unprecedented in its year history. Indeed, in the spring of , the English word count surpassed a million--over ten times the number available in French.
At the crest of this linguistic tsunami surfs Paul J. Payack, aka the WordMan. As president of the Global Language Monitor, he has tracked the latest developments--the fascinating hybrids, the bizarre etymologies, the lasting malapropisms--in the language shared by two billion of the Earth's citizens.