“Tweet” Word of the Year, “Google” Word of the Decade

The American Dialect Society has spoken.

In an official vote that took place right here in Baltimore on January 8, 2010, “tweet” was named Word of the Year for 2009 and “google” was named Word of the Decade.

“Tweet”, of course, refers to the wildly popular micro-blogging site Twitter that burst on to the scene in the latter portion of the decade.  That’s quite an achievement.

The ADS gives the following definition:

tweet, noun, a short message sent via the Twitter.com service, and verb, the act of sending such a message.

The word beat out such competition as “H1N1″, “dracula sneeze” (the act of sneezing into the elbow of your clothing), and “fail”.

Google has achieved something even greater.

The word “Google” beat out other word such as “blog”, “9/11″, and “Wi-Fi”. That’s quite a feat for the popular search company.

They give the definition as follows:

google Verb meaning “to search the Internet.” Generic form of the trademarked “Google,” the world’s dominant Internet search engine.

“It’s hard to imagine life before we were Googling,” says American Dialect Society executive council member Ben Zimmer.

What do you think?  Should Google be the Word of the Decade?  Let us know in the comments below.

You can view the complete release below:

2009-Word-of-the-Year-PRESS-RELEASE

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• “Tweet” Word of the Year, “Google” Word of the Decade (languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu)
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