“Unfriend” enters the vernacular as dictionary word of the year

Posted on 18 November 2009 by


dictionary

Shakespeare is rolling in his grave again.  My English teacher in high school is breaking his red pencils.  ”Unfriend” has entered the New Oxford American Dictionary.  It beat out words “netbook”, “hashtag” and “sexting” to take this year’s annual honor.

To “unfriend” is “To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.”  And yes, they said Facebook.

There has been a trend over the last few years of picking words and phrases that are prevalent in our digital word. It all started with Merriam Webster adding “blog” to their dictionary back in 2004.

I am of two minds bout this.  The part of me who graduated with an English degree from college is rolling her eyes and wishing for a magic digital red pencil so I can edit this one out of our language.  The other is glad to see the world embracing technology at many levels and allowing our language and culture to grow with the times.

It makes you wonder what will be added next?  Do you have any suggestions?

For a little more information on the selection process, go to CNN.

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  • Jaybot7

    It’s a living language so we have to live with it ;)

    I remember flipping out a few years ago when a new definition was added to the dictionary for the word ‘literally’ with the meaning of ‘virtually’. The exact opposite of the meaning of the original word :)

  • Christopher Gavula

    On one hand, languages must grow and change to reflect the current social patterns of the day or they stagnate and ultimately die. So I guess that makes it a good thing.

    That said – why THIS word? There are a lot of words that have entered the American lexicon that are more visible than this one. Sometimes these “experts” leave me scratching my head in wonder.

  • http://twitter.com/raywaldo/status/5840720101 Ray Waldo

    RT @GearDiarySite: “Unfriend” enters the vernacular as dictionary word of the year http://bit.ly/3EnbI8

  • http://www.geardiary.com Michael Anderson

    I chalk this up to the apparent need to feel trendy and relevant in order to maintain mindshare or something …

  • BBusyb

    Actually if you think about it, Shakespeare would wonder what all the fuss is about. :)

    I’ve just been Listening to Bill Brysons’s “The world as a Stage” and it talks about many new words were added by Shakespeare, and how fluid he was in his usage of words and spelling (Up to and including his own name :) )

    The english language did not start to become more organized an codified till a lot later, till the 19th century in fact when Attempts at dictionaries gained steam, culminating in the Complete Oxford Dictionary.

    As a living entity the language is going to evolve, and trying to be too rigid about what is right or wrong can lead a language becoming too stratified for use, or too inflexible. Part of the reason the English language has grown so dominate is its flexibility, and