Twitter Hailed As Most Popular Word Of 2009

Microblogging phenomenon Twitter, which has dramatically transformed the way people on the internet interact with each other, has been named the most popular English word of the year, according to researchers.

The Global Language Monitor, a text-based group, has released a list of 15 words that were at the centrepiece of the majority of the big stories across the globe.

The word, Twitter, was found to be more popular than some of the prominent newsmakers of the year, including ‘Obama’ and ‘H1N1’, the scientific nomenclature of the swine flu virus that hit a major part of the world.

Other words that have made it to the list of most popular words were more or less related to global economic crisis. These include words like "stimulus" - a term given to huge bail-out packages provided by the government to financially tormented corporate houses and companies - "deficit", "bonus", and "foreclosure".

In addition, words from other fidgety domains which were under the lens of various news agencies throughout the year include "vampire", "hadron", and "unemployed".

Commenting upon the revelations about the most popular word of the year, Paul Payack, president of the language monitor firm, said: "In a year dominated by world-shaking political events, a pandemic, the after effects of a financial tsunami and the death of a revered pop icon, the word Twitter stands above all the other words."