The judges noted that only a year ago the term was known only to 'a few techies and self-admitted "geeks"'. Now thousands are available covering just about every subject imaginable...
The judges noted that only a year ago the term was known only to 'a few techies and self-admitted "geeks"'. Now thousands are available covering just about every subject imaginable. The word, 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 online version of dictionary during the next update early next year. '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,' said Erin McKean, editor in chief of the dictionary. 'Choosing the word of the year is incredibly difficult. 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!"
