More Global Language Monitor silliness

[Wilson Gray]

No, Ben. You're missing the point, which is the fact that Mr. Payack
has a degree from Harvard. ;-)

-Wilson


On 1/29/06, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      More Global Language Monitor silliness
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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...
>
> -----
> 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.)
> -----
>
> It's all scientific, you see! He has an algorithm!
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>
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>

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