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Old 08-09-2013, 12:51 PM
 
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I've noticed terms like "worldwide", "world city", "the world" are increasingly being usurped by "globally", "global city", "the globe". Do you think this has to do with the rise of cultural homogenity and technology?

The term "global" implies a kind of sameness or interconnectedness that "world" doesn't. It also has more of a technical geometric sound to it.

Do we see ourselves as living not so much in a complex "world" but rather a simplistic and generic circle in this day and age?
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Old 08-09-2013, 01:36 PM
 
Location: Victoria TX
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Because the news media is averse to repeating the same word over and over again, so they find new ones. A earthquake story eventually uses the word "temblor" in the second paragraph, where a story about the Pope also uses the word "pontiff".

Since the word "global" is now so widely used, what is unusual about calling it a globe, which is exactly what it is. "A globe" is any spherical form, but "The Globe" is widely recognized as referring to Earth.

Note that the use of the word "world" has sharply increased in the past decade or so, rising to WWII levels, so maybe "globe" is being used more to avoid overuse of "world". But 'globe' is still used only a very tiny fraction of the frequency of 'world'.

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph...thing=3&share=

Much of that disparity arises from the use of expressions like "third world", where one never says "third globe", since globe is always used to describe the entirety of the planet, while world can often be used to refer to just an extensive area of common influence or characteristics, like "the animal world" or "the music world".

Delimiting the search to "globe" only, you can see that by 2008, it had only regaioned its WWII popularity, and was much more commonly used in the 19th century.

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph...thing=3&share=

Last edited by jtur88; 08-09-2013 at 02:00 PM..
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