The Word of the Year

It’s Saturday morning and I have a full day planned. A short blog before I take off. Enjoy the day!

CNET News reports that the New Oxford American Dictionary of English rejected inclusion of the word “podcast” last year because it was not widely enough known. “Now, however, illustrating the technology’s rapid growth in popularity, the term is not only being added, it’s been declared the dictionary’s Word of the Year.”

The word is defined as “a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player.”

According to a story in the BBC News on Wednesday, “the term was coined by journalist Ben Hammersley and although originally derived from combining ‘broadcasting’ and ‘iPod,’ this definition has become something of a misnomer as podcasts can be listened to on any digital music player.”

Some bloggers have been lobbying for a more generic term such as “blogcasting.” However, it appears podcast is here to stay.

The BBC article also listed some of the words that did not make the cut for the coming year’s dictionary: “bird flu,” “sudoku” (a logic puzzle) and “trans fat.”

Two tech terms that also didn’t make the cut were “lifehack” and “rootkit.” Lifehack refers to a more efficient way to complete an ordinary task, while rootkit refers to software installed on a computer by someone other than the owner that conceals other programs or files (a recent example would be the program Sony hid in its music CDs to prevent copying).