It is the driving force behind what some experts have hailed a golden age in the development of the English language.

But while the internet may be responsible for the greatest blossoming of new phrases since Shakespeare it has also been blamed for some of the most irritating.

Now a poll has revealed the web-related words that drive most computer users up the wall. "Folksonomy" was voted the most annoying new phrase in a survey to mark the 10th anniversary of the word "web-log".

The YouGov poll, in which 2,000 web users voted for their least favourite word spawned by the internet, celebrates the second annual Blooker Prize, which honours the year's best "blook", or book based on a blog. The 10 most irksome words spawned by the internet:

1. Folksonomy: an ad hoc online classification system
2. Blogosphere: the collective term for the online blogging community
3. Blog: an online journal or web-log
4. Netiquette: internet etiquette
5. Blook: a book based on a blog
6. Webinar: an online seminar
7. Vlog: a video blog
8. Social networking: the use of the web to form "virtual communities"
9. Cookie: a text file stored on your computer from a website you visited
10. = Wiki: a collaborative website in which multiple authors add, remove and edit content
= Podcast: a downloadable audio file
= Avatar: an icon used to represent oneself online
= User-generated content: web content created by use

Telegraph.co.uk