“Twitter”: Most popular English word of 2009

It’s official – the most popular English word of this year is the name of the massive micro-blogging site, Twitter.

So says the Global Language Monitor, a Texas based organisation which analyses the Internet and traditional media’s language usage.

Twitter was more talked about than Obama (who was number two), swine flu and the economic crisis (“stimulus” was number four).

“Vampire” was the fifth most popular word (we’re only surprised it wasn’t “Twilight”).

A number of other economic terms featured in the top twenty, such as “deficit”, “outrage” at the “bonus” culture, and “unemployment”.

The top phrase of the year was “king of pop”, Michael Jackson. And surprisingly not “overpaid gluttonous idiots”, the bankers.