LONDON - 2005 was dominated by one phenomenon. No, it was not the Hurricane Katrina, which wiped the US Gulf Coast in late August. It was a certain non-descript looking music player called the iPod.
To say that the iPod revolutionized the way the world listens to music is a big understatement. Such is the huge popularity of Steve Jobs' Apple's flagship creation that the New Oxford American Dictionary has nominated "Podcasting" as the Word of the Year.
The word was coined by Journalist Ben Hammersleyin February 2004, but has now come to symbolize an exciting way of looking at the world. It is a combination of the words "iPod" and "broadcast".
Officially, the dictionary, which will carry this word in its updated version next year, defines podcasting as "a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player". The word was in vogue much before the start of this year, but had not become a household name that it has now.
"Podcast was considered for inclusion last year, but we found that not enough people were using it, or were even familiar with the concept," commented the editor-in-chief of the New Oxford American Dictionary, Erin McKean. “This year it's a completely different story. The word has finally caught up with the rest of the iPod phenomenon,” he added on BBC. Apple added a podcast directory to the iTunes music store only in June this year.
Critics of the word have argued that it gives exclusive publicity to Apple, but they have had to concede that there is no alternative. Some of the words that dominated the global landscape this year, but failed to make it to the dictionary include bird flu. This will probably be remedied next year! Sudoku, the puzzle that has caught the fancy of the world was also omitted from the dictionary as was 'trans fat', which is a method of treating vegetable with hydrogen.
