"Twitter" is the world’s most popular English word

Twitter – everybody's talking about it, apparently

In another sign of its increasing acceptance as a mainstream business and consumer technology tool, “Twitter” has today been named the most popular word of the year, according to the Global Language Monitor (GLM).

The GLM released the 15 most popular words culled from the English-speaking world, which now numbers more than 1.58 billion people, and found that "Twitter " topped “Obama” and “H1N1”, the formal name for swine flu.

“In a year dominated by world-shaking political events, a pandemic, the after-effects of a financial tsunami and the death of a revered pop icon, the word Twitter stands above all the other words,” said GLM president Paul Payack.

"Twitter represents a new form of social interaction, where all communication is reduced to 140 characters. Being limited to strict formats did wonders for the sonnet and haiku. One wonders where this highly impractical word-limit will lead as the future unfolds."

Previous years have seen the words “Change”, “Hybrid”, “Sustainable” and “Refugee” top GLM’s list.

On Sunday, Microsoft announced the top searches conducted on Bing this year. Twitter was the second most popular search after Michael Jackson.