Word of the Year

New Oxford American Dictionary has named it's words of the year. The overall winner is podcast.

Podcasting is a term used to describe a collection of technologies for automatically distributing audio programmes over the Internet using a publisher/subscriber model. Podcasting enables independent producers to create self-published, syndicated "radio shows," and gives broadcast radio or television programs a new distribution method.

Anyone interested in listening to any particular podcast you can search for them at podcast net

Runner up words of the year are:

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, in ended 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.)