The Top Ten Buzzwords of the 2008 Presidential Campaign

About This Video

The Top Political Buzzwords for the first seven... The Top Political Buzzwords for the first seven months of 2007 were named earlier today by the Global Language Monitor (GLM) (www.LanguageMonitor.com) in its first ranking of the 2008 presidential campaign. The Top 10: Surge, Obama, youTube, Cleavage, Pardon, Live Earth, Subpoena, Congress, All-time Low, and "I don't recall". "This disparate collection of buzzwords speaks volumes about today's electorate," said Paul JJ Payack, President of The Global Language Monitor (GLM). "We have an Iraq War strategy, a name, a corporate entity, and a commentary on a female candidate's 'neckline' at the top of the list ... and then it really gets interesting.' Political buzzwords are terms of phrases that become loaded with emotional freight beyond the normal meaning of the word. For example, the word surge has been in the English-language vocabulary since time immemorial. However, in its new context as an Iraq War strategy, it inspires a set of emotions in many people far beyond the norm. The ranking is determined by GLM's PQI Index, a proprietary algorithm that scours the global print and electronic media, the Internet, and blogosphere for 'hot' political buzzwords and then ranks them according to year-over-year change, acceleration and directional momentum. Using this methodology, GLM was the only media analytics organization that foresaw the '04 electorate voting with their moral compasses rather than their pocketbooks.