NEW YORK, Dec. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Only a year ago, podcasting was an arcane
activity, the domain of a few techies and self-admitted "geeks." Now you can
hear everything from NASCAR coverage to NPR's All Things Considered in
downloadable audio files called "podcasts". Thousands of podcasts are
available at the iTunes Music Store, and websites such as iPodder.com and
Podcast.net track thousands more. That's why the editors of the New Oxford
American Dictionary have selected "podcast" as the Word of the Year for 2005.
Podcast, defined as "a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar
program, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio
player," will be added to the next online update of the New Oxford American
Dictionary, due in early 2006.

Runners-up for the 2005 Word of the Year include:

bird flu (an often fatal flu virus of birds, esp. poultry, that is
transmissible from them to humans, in whom it may also prove fatal)

ICE (an entry stored in one's cellular phone that provides emergency
contact information)

IDP (internally displaced person; someone forced to relocate within a
country because of a natural disaster or civil unrest)

IED (improvised explosive device, such as a car bomb)

lifehack (a more efficient or effective way of completing an everyday
task: "I found a great lifehack for getting a cheap hotel room.")

persistent vegetative state (a condition in which a patient recovering
from a coma retains reflex responses and may appear wakeful, but has no
cognitive functions or other evidence of cerebral cortical activity)

reggaeton (a Latin American dance music which combines elements of reggae
music with hip-hop and rap.)

rootkit (software installed on a computer by someone other than the owner,
intended to conceal other programs or processes, files or system data.)

squick (cause immediate and thorough revulsion: "was anyone else squicked
by our waiter's piercings?")

sudoku (a logic-based puzzle consisting of squares that form grids within
a grid. Into each smaller grid, the numerals 1 through 9 are entered but not
repeated, and they may not be repeated in any row or column of the larger
grid.)

trans fat (fat containing trans-fatty acids, considered unhealthier than
other dietary fats.)

Erin McKean, editor in chief of the New Oxford American Dictionary, said:
"Podcast was considered for inclusion last year, but we found that not enough
people were using it, or were even familiar with the concept. This year it's a
completely different story. The word has finally caught up with the rest of
the iPod phenomenon."
"Choosing the word of the year is incredibly difficult," said McKean. "Not
just because of the enormous amount of data we look at-everything from blogs
to technical journals to suggestions sent to dictionaries@oup.com-but because
everyone has such strong opinions about what makes a word Word of the Year
material. You'd be amazed at how hard our editors campaign for their
favorites. I'm surprised nobody tried to bribe me -- except that the only
thing I really want is more cool new words!"



SOURCE Oxford University Press
Web Site: http://www.oup.com/us