DALLAS, Dec 14, 2005/ FW/ --- Two words dominated the headlines this year that are so different from each other, ‘podcast’ and ‘integrity’ have been both voted the word of the year by two different organizations.

Editors at the New Oxford American dictionary have selected ‘podcast’ as their word of the year, defined as ‘a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal-audio player.’

Merriam-Webster Dictionary has chosen ‘integrity’ as the word of the year based on users' anonymous hits to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary and Online Thesaurus, defined as ‘firm adherence to a code, especially moral or artistic values: incorruptibility.’

The methodology of choosing the word of the year from these two organizations is different.

According to the Erin McKean, editor in chief of the New Oxford American dictionary, the reason for the selection of podcast is its popularity, with millions of portable devices sold this year along and the awareness of podcast has soared.

"That's what dictionaries do. They catalog words in popular use," McKean commented.

Runners-up for the word of the wear included "bird flu," "persistent vegetative state" and "trans fat," for the New Oxford American dictionary list.

Meanwhile, Merriam-Webster Dictionary decided on the bases of the number of times a word had been looked up on Merriam-Webster Online, and for 2005, the word ‘integrity’ took the number one spot, followed by ‘refugee’ on the number 2 spot. ‘Tsunami,’ which hit the headlines during the early part of 2005 too the number 6 spot.

"Lookups for 'integrity' have steadily increased over the past few years, and this year it is clearly the most looked-up word," said John M. Morse, president and publisher of Merriam-Webster.

"We're not sure how to account for the increase in interest in this particular word, except that people do often look up the meanings of words that have special significance to current events and issues. Perhaps it's not too much of a stretch to think that recent political and social developments have made the word integrity particularly appropriate to issues that people are talking about," Morse added.

On an interesting note, the word insipid took the number 5 spot. According to Morse, it was because of a comment by Simon Cowell on American Idol towards Anthony Federov’s performance that said it was ‘'pleasant, safe, and a little insipid.’

Now, what do you say to that?