It's only words

You can say what you want about swine flu but it appears to have put an end to the recession - as far as the national papers and TV news are concerned, at least.

It must be over anyway, as Barclay’s Bank has increased its pre-tax profits by 15 per cent, which means my overdraft is safe and won’t have to be nationalised by the Government – and, given its size (my overdraft, not the Government) that will no doubt come as a huge relief to the Treasury.

So now that my immediate financial future is secure, we can turn our attentions to the English language and ponder which word will be the one millionth officially recorded.

According to the Global Language Monitor website, English throws up a new word every 98 minutes and is due to pass the Million Word Mark at 10.22am on June 10. And in case you were wondering where this website is based, it adds “Stratford-on-Avon Time” – so that’ll be across the water, then.

Point is, what will that word be? And how do they know there are already 999,456 words, at the time of writing? Who is going to check? And why?

I was going to suggest that we all have a guess at what the word might be, but that would mean the word would then exist, and so wouldn’t be the millionth.

No doubt The Word will be the latest computer-geek speak invention of the moment but if you are interested in words it’s quite a nail-biter. And yes, I do intend to get out more.

Meanwhile, back to this Monitor website. And a word of warning, don’t go there unless you have, ooooh, a couple of hours to spare at least.

To save you all a few minutes, the following examples were extracted from its Chinglish section, many surfacing during the Beijing Olympics:

No noising (translated as quiet please).

Jumping umbrella (Hang glider).

Airline Pulp (Food served aboard jets, hmmm).

The slippery are very crafty (Slippery when wet).

If you are stolen, call the police (None given, none really needed).

Deformed Man Toilet (Disabled toilets).

Get used to it, the way populations are going, we’ll all be speaking it by the middle of the century.