2009 word of the year

Somebody just mentioned at a workshop by Steve that the 2009 Word of the Year is: unfriend.

unfriend – verb – To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.

http://blog.oup.com/2009/11/unfriend/ and http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2270425051&topic=3819

Not only is it fascinating to observe how social networking has crept into our language, words are now being invented to describe some of the social dynamics that are happening as we define the different roles and scope we apply for colleagues, friends and family.

I am curious what others think. :-)

Tags: facebook, networking, privacy, social, unfriend

0 members like this

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Alline Sada on November 24, 2009 at 11:02pm

My students are native Spanish speakers, you'd be amazed how many of these words end up in our everyday language (a few have even made it into our Spanish dictionaries!)

In the dieting, slim-fast era of the late 80s and 90s happened, we ended up with the words "diet" and "light" in our dictionaries. No translations, just as they originally are.

"Email" and "Giga-byte" have also kept both their spelling and pronounciations. I wouldn't be surprised to find "Friend" or "Messenger" getting added in soon as well.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Roland Gesthuizen on November 25, 2009 at 5:51pm

Interesting Alline .. the very Australian expression Fair Dinkum used describe something that is true has it's origin in the Chinese on our Gold Fields in the 1850's

http://melbourne.metblogs.com/2006/08/17/fair-dinkum-indeed/

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Kev on November 25, 2009 at 5:54pm

What is most odd is I've never heard "unfriend" ever. I hear "defriend" all the time used in that context though. Either Websters is out of touch or I am. :)