Grit, arrogance top HollyWords in ’10
Beekeeper Wang Dalin, 42, is covered in bees during a contest against 20-year-old Lu Kongjiang, also a beekeeper, in Longhui
Grit, which reflects many of the virtues of 2010 Hollywood blockbusters, has emerged as the top word from the film parlance that influenced English language in 2010.
For the first time, a single word representative of a number of blockbusters topped the list of HollyWords named by Global Language Monitor in its 8th annual survey followed by arrogance, abdicate, tammer and madness. Dream-stealers, nerds, Borogoves, shard, and 3-D completed out the top ten.
“According to Webster’s, the term ‘grit’ has the following senses that applied to these films: firmness, pluck, gritty (as in soot-covered), stubborn, indomitable spirit, courageous and brave perseverance,” says Paul J.J. Payack, chief word analyst of GLM. In 2010, the top word was “Pandora” from Avatar while in 2008, it was “Jai Ho!”.
Grit is from the title of Best Picture nominee at the Oscars True Grit, as exemplified by the characters played by Jeff Bridges (firmness) and Hailee Steinfeld (pluck).
The action of The Fighter took place against the backdrop of one of the nation’s fabled gritty cities: Lowell, Massachusetts into which Mark Wahlberg, Melissa Leo and Christian Bale expertly blended. 127 Hours portrayed the stubborn courage of a man driven to desperate acts to ensure his survival. The accidental and courageous king and his indomitable tutor was portrayed by Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush in The King’s Speech. And Woody’s brave perseverance keeps his fellow toys together in Toy Story 3.
“Arrogance” was deftly depicted in both The Social Network and Inside Job while “abdicate” was what another generation learns of cowardice in high places, this time in the British Royal family as depicted in The King’s Speech.
The GLM uses a proprietary algorithm, the Predictive Quantities Indicator (PQI) to track the frequency of words and phrases in the global print and electronic media, on the Internet, throughout the Blogosphere, as well as accessing proprietary databases. The PQI is a weighted Index, factoring in: long-term trends, short-term changes, momentum, and velocity.
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