The Merriam-Webster dictionary company has named “blog” their #1 word of the year. The company generates the list by taking the most looked-up words and eliminating profanity and commonly confused words like affect/effect.

They define blog as “a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer.” For those interested in pondering the meaning of “blog,” we suggest checking out the trailer of Chuck Olsen’s Blogumentary where he elicits some very funny responses from people on the street unfamiliar with the technology.

Other words on the list reflected the 2004 election: incumbent, electoral, and insurgent. The two most obscure words on the list were peloton, a noun referring to the main body of riders in a bicycle race, and defenestration, a noun referring to the “throwing of a person or thing out of a window.”