Dale's Entertainment Corner

            'change', the most used term during the US presidential campaign, 'financial tsunami' and 'Barack Obama'  have been named words and phrases of the year by a global survey done by Global Language monitor(GLM). The analysis was completed using GLM's predictive quantities indicator, the proprietary algorithm that tracks the words and phrases in the media and on the Internet. The words are tracked in relation to frequency, contextual usage and apperance in global media outlets,factoring in long-term trends, short-term changes, momentum and velocity."For 2008, words were culled throught pout the English-speaking world which now numbers some 1.58 billion speakers and includes diverse cultures as Inida,china,philippines and the Euro Zone".

'Bailout' and 'obamamania' describing  the worldwide reactions to obama's campaign and subsequent victory in the US presidential race, came second and third in the top word list. 'Phelpsian', a new word coined to describe the feat of swimmer Michael Phelps winning gold medals at the Beijing olympics and 'Chinglish', a chinese english Language hybrid that beijing tried to stamp out before the olympics began also found a place in that list.The GLM put the estimates number of words in the English language at 998,751, just 1,249 from the million-word mark.