BTB #141: Words of the Year from the Dictionary Man

At Merriam-Webster, the editors are always adding new words, of course, but now with online tracking technology, they can also tell what words we look up the most – something not possible before the Web. In 2009, this online vocabulary traffic took inspiration from Michael Jackson, H1N1, the economy, and, of course, politics.

John Morse returns to Beyond the Book to count down with Chris Kenneally the top ten list. Merriam-Webster.com now exceeds 1.3 billion individual page views per year, or about ten lookup requests per second. During peak hours, this traffic may increase to more than 100 requests per second.