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.

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!"

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