The Girl With A Mac Blog

And The Dictionary Word Of The Year Is.. Unfriend?

Posted Nov 17, 2009. Filed under Web, Culture, Social Networking, Facebook. Leave a comment?

That’s right, social networking had become such a tremendous force in our lives the “unfriend” has been named the New Oxford American Dictionary’s Word of the Year.

Oxford tracks how the English language is changing yearly. Researchers choose the Word of the Year “to reflect the ethos of the year and its lasting potential as a word of cultural significance and use.

“It has both currency and potential longevity,” said Christine Lindberg, a language researcher for Oxford’s U.S. dictionary program. “In the online social networking context, its meaning is understood, so its adoption as a modern verb form makes this an interesting choice for Word of the Year.”

Oxford defines unfriend (which is a verb) as removing someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.

Unfriend beat out several other technology related words for the honor. Other considerations were “hashtag” (the hash sign added to a word or phrase that lets Twitter users search for tweets similarly tagged), “netbook” (a small portable laptop computer designed for wireless communication and access to the Internet),”intexticated” (when people are distracted by texting while driving) and “sexting” (the sending of sexually explicit text messages and pictures by cellphone).

Before reading this on Google, I had no idea that dictionaries awarded such a thing as the title of Word of the Year. But I am glad that I’ve come across this because I now know what intexticated means, and it may be my new favorite word. Thank you for adding absolutely ridiculous words to the dictionary, now when writing a paper for my Cinema and Violence class I will now know how to spell sexting. What would I do without that knowledge?