'Top Words from 2007': _hybrid_, _surge_, _climate change_

[Damien Hall]

NPR's _Weekend Edition Saturday_ yesterday had a little piece about the 'top
words of 2007' as determined from their popularity in the media by Global
Language Monitor LLC.  From the GLM website:

'The Global Language Monitor (GLM) documents, analyzes and tracks trends in
language the world over, with a particular emphasis upon Global English.  GLM
is based in San Diego, California and Henderson, Nevada.  GLM is incorporated
as an LLC.'

When they say 'language' they seem to mean 'the English media lexicon':  I can't
find any evidence on their website that they analyse anything else.  I also
haven't spent long enough on their website to know how they do it exactly.
Anyway, they say that the 'top word' of 2007 was _hybrid (representing all
things green)_, followed by _surge_ (as in 'troop surge'), and that the 'top
phrase' was _climate change_.  On this evidence, it seems to me that these
aren't 'top words' in any real sense except in that they may be the nouns and
NPs that occur most often in headlines in the media in a given year (maybe?).
The evidence of previous years' 'top words lists' backs this up.

Here's the NPR story (to listen to):
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89209775

and here's the Global Language Monitor website:
http://www.languagemonitor.com/GlobalLanguageMonitor.html

Damien Hall
University of Pennsylvania

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