More Global Language Monitor silliness

[Benjamin Zimmer]

As if their inane annual word lists weren't bad enough, now the Global
Language Monitor has hoodwinked a New York Times reporter into buying
a whole truckload of nonsense...

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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/realestate/29cov.html

The yearning for a smooth transition from the surging [real estate]
market is seen in the increasingly frequent use in the last six months
of the phrase "soft landing."

"Soft landing is everyone's big hope," said Paul JJ Payack, president
of the Global Language Monitor (languagemonitor.com), which analyzes
language trends and their impact on politics, culture and business.

Mr. Payack, who graduated from Harvard with a bachelor's degree in
comparative literature, calculated the popularity of some 36 buzzwords
chosen by a reporter. He used his Predictive Quantities Indicator, or
P.Q.I., an algorithm that tracks words and phrases in the media and on
the Internet in relation to frequency, contextual usage and appearance
in global media. It is a weighted index that takes into account
year-to-year increases and acceleration in the last several months.

Among the market buzzwords he ranked, "soft landing" and "pause" had
the highest P.Q.I.'s. They were ranked first and second respectively,
while the more ominous sounding "housing bubble" ranked seventh. "
'Pause' is another one of these hopeful things," Mr. Payack said.

(Mr. Payack can also verify that "O.K." is the most frequently spoken
word, that "outside the mainstream" was the top phrase of 2005 and
that as of Jan. 26 at 10:59 a.m. Eastern time, the number of words in
the English language was 986,120.)
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It's all scientific, you see! He has an algorithm!


--Ben Zimmer

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