Over the past 11 months, "Twitter" has been the most popular word in the English language.
The Global Language Monitor, a group that tracks and analyzes trends in linguistics, counted the number of times various words appeared in the media or on the Internet. "Twitter" was the most successful at infiltrating the public discourse; "Obama" came in second; and "H1N1," "stimulus," "vampire," "2.0," rounded out the top five. "Barack Obama" topped "Michael Jackson" for the most ubiquitous name of 2009; however, "The King of Pop" edged out "Obama-mania" for the year's most popular phrase. It probably says something about the way our language is evolving that a microblogging service that limits the number of words with which we can communicate was found to be the year's most-used word. (And even with all that free advertising, no one has figured out how to monetize the thing.) Click here to read more.

The Top 6 Words of 2009

Phrase             Comments

1. Twitter — The ability to encapsulate human thought in 140 characters

2. Obama — The word stem transforms into scores of new words like ObamaCare

3. H1N1 — The formal (and politically correct) name for Swine Flu

4. Stimulus — The $800 billion aid package meant to help mend the US economy

5. Vampire — Vampires are very much en vogue, now the symbol of unrequited love

6. 2.0 — The 2.0 suffix is attached to the next generation of everything