INTERNET CULTURE RULES the world, according to a list of the top 20 words of 2013.

‘Fail’, ‘meme’ and ‘twerking’ all make the list compiled by the Global Language Monitor – which is topped by internet failure code ’404′.

The top name of this year was Pope Francis, with Kate Middleton and NSA whistleblower Ed Snowden also in the top ten.

Some 1,025,109 different words will be in use by English speakers by January 1 next year, the GLM projects. This is an increase of 5,400 on last January’s figure of 1,019,729.

The Global Language Monitor tracks online language use across the English-speaking world, which it says now includes around 1.83 billion people.

Here’s the top 20 list:

1. 404
2. Fail
3. Hashtag
4. @Pontifex
5. The Optic (as in the optics of a political debate)
6. Surveillance
7. Drones
8. Deficit
9. Sequestration
10. Emancipate
11. Filibuster
12. Nano
13. Twerking
14. Deadlock
15. Franken- (as a prefix to other words)
16. Meme
17. Stalemate
18. The Cloud
19. Phony
20. Comet

WATCH: White supremacist finds out he is of African descent>

Car owner charged extra for ‘foul language’ by clamping company>