Everyone’s favorite epitome of journalistic prowess and hard-hitting, relevant news (heh), USA Today, has evidently uncovered a breaking news story which uncovers the world’s most popular phrase on the rise. The daily paper read by over nine million (per month) has discovered that the prefix “Meta” forms the coolest lingo.

Sure, Google now has over 7.2 million hits on their web search, but some people started riding the wave before anyone knew how cool the trend would become.

Havoc developed the popular Metacity window manager long before USA Today heralded “meta” as a buzzword. The Gnome project is also seeing another sort of meta come into being — the arrival of metathemes

As for predictions for the next “in” buzzword of the moment? I am placing bets on “phoon”. It’s a sure winner.