"Pandora" is most influential Hollywood word of 2009

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The term "Pandora" from James Cameron's Avatar tops a list of Hollywood phrases that most influenced the English language in 2009, according to a March 12 announcement by the Global Language Monitor. Other top "Hollywords," which were determined based on scans of billions of blogs, social media sites, and other web pages, include phrases from The Hurt Locker, Crazy Heart, and Twilight.

Closely following "Pandora" were "hurt locker" from The Hurt Locker, "barley pop" from Crazy Heart, "vampire" from Twilight, and "squeakquel" from Chipmunks: The Squeakquel. Other films that generated buzzwords in 2009 include 2012, Inglourious Basterds, The Blind Side, and District 9.

The Global Language Monitor announces its Top Hollywords each year in conjunction with the Oscar Award ceremony, held this year on March 7. Previous "winners" have included "Jai Ho!" (2008, from Slumdog Millionnaire), "Call it, friendo" (2007, No Country for Old Men), and "pinot" (2004, Sideways).

Top 10 "Hollywords" of 2009:

1. Pandora ( Avatar) - The name of the alien planet in Avatar is originally from the classical Greek word meaning "all blessings or gifts."

2. Hurt locker ( The Hurt Locker) - In GI vernacular, explosions send you into the "hurt locker," synonymous with "a world of hurt."

3. Barley pop ( Crazy Heart) - main character Bad Blake's term for beer.

4. Vampire ( Twilight) - Thanks to the Twilight films, vampires are enjoying a revival in the 21st century.

5. Squeakquel ( Chipmunks: The Squeakquel).

6. December 21, 2012 ( 2012) - in the film, the date that marks the end of the world.

7. Vichy ( Inglourious Basterds) - Shosanna Dreyfus's suggestion to Fredrick on where to find girlfriends invokes the seamy side of WWII's Free France narrative.

8. Her ( Star Trek) - Several hundred years from now, although "no man" is replaced by "no one" in the starship Enterprise's mission statement, starships maintain their female gender status, "her": "These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Her ongoing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life-forms and new civilizations; to boldly go where no one has gone before."

9. Theirs but to do or die ( The Blind Side) - a line from Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade, which football player Michael Oher writes about for an English class essay.

10. Prawns ( District 9) - the politically incorrect name for space aliens, coined for their resemblance to crustaceans.

The GLM analyzes trends in word choice and their impact on culture using a proprietary algorithm, the Predictive Quantities Indicator (PQI), which tracks the frequency of words and phrases in global print and electronic media, throughout the blogosphere, on social media sites, and in proprietary databases, factoring in long-term trends, short-term changes, momentum, and velocity.

http://www.LanguageMonitor.com