Fight: Facebook vs Google vs Twitter

Davey Winder
Monday, 11 January 2010 23:43

Your IT - Home IT

Which word has had the most impact during the last decade, and not just in the world of technology? Could it possibly be Facebook, Google or Tweet?

Tech types love to talk a good fight, there's no doubt about that and it's probably one of the reasons that blogging has become so popular. Indeed, the word 'blog' itself was hugely popular in 2002.

So popular, in fact, that it made the list of some of the most notable words of the decade according to the American Dialect Society.

Every year the American Dialect Society publishes a 'Word of the Year' list based upon a voting system which has numerous sub-categories as well as the overall one. These are, I should point out, not just technology related words but all words that have burned themselves into the psyche of the US nation.

Interestingly, in the same year that blog (word most likely to succeed) was on the list of winners it was not the Word of the Year, that honour didn't even go to Google (most useful word) when used as a verb but rather to the acronym WMD. Well I guess weapons of mass destruction were on everyone's mind back then.

However, this led me to wonder which other tech words had done well in the last decade. I was sure that Facebook must feature somewhere, and a little digging reveals that it was indeed on the list in 2007. That year the Word of the Year, however, was perhaps understandably Subprime.

In 2004 I uncovered that Phish, as in the despicable act of attempting to steal someone's identity or personal data using social engineering methods via email, made the list. Red state was the winner, for reasons that I guess politically aware Americans will appreciate more than pretty much everyone else.

What other tech words have featured in the word of the year lists, and could technology terminology possibly have won the coveted title of Word of the Decade? Read on and prepare for a pleasant surprise.

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