Language puritans who never got used to the casual verbing of the noun “friend” on Facebook now have a new abomination to contend with: The Oxford University Press has named “unfriend” as its 2009 word of the year.
A quick scan of the list of also-rans for the annual honor suggests that the word, which describes deleting someone from a list of contacts in social networking, is an apt choice for these contentious times. A sampling of the other nominees and their definitions:
birther – a conspiracy theorist who challenges President Obama’s birth certificate
death panel – a theoretical body that determines which patients deserve to live, when care is rationed
deleb – a dead celebrity
teabagger – a person, who protests President Obama’s tax policies and stimulus package, often through local demonstrations known as “Tea Party” protests (in allusion to the Boston Tea Party of 1773)
tramp stamp – a tattoo on the lower back, usually on a woman
zombie bank – a financial institution whose liabilities are greater than its assets, but which continues to operate because of government support
Follow Tweed through your favorite RSS reader:
6 Responses to The Unfriendliest Cut of All
jffoster - November 18, 2009 at 5:55 am
Since I will never “friend” anybody, I will never “unfriend” them either. Nor even “disfriend” them. Nor will I ever “disrespect” anybody either, although I might treat them with disrespect. Indeed, I contempt anybody who thinks ‘disrespect’ or ‘friend’ are verbs.
greenhills73 - November 18, 2009 at 9:24 am
I have deleted only one friend but I never gave it a thought as to what to call the act. I thought it was just deleting a friend. But I like the new word, “defriend.”
11121688 - November 18, 2009 at 12:07 pm
What a shame that OUP and the Chronicle cannot find something more important to think about!
hlwiley - November 18, 2009 at 1:04 pm
I can’t help but wonder whether the verb to teabag was already legitimaized by Oxford.
rosmerta - November 18, 2009 at 1:53 pm
“Teabagger” was actually a pejorative used by certain media figures to refer to those participating in the political “Tea Party” protests of last summer. “Teabagging” actually refers to a sexual practice that (I assume) was fairly obscure until people like Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann decided it was game for fair use, with accompanying sniggers. It’s a shame Oxford has chosen to legitimize this usage.
smbailey - November 20, 2009 at 7:20 am
What we need is a word for people who follow a link in order to read a blog, and then take time to write a comment in which they criticize the author of the blog for wasting time on something not worth reading and commenting on. But it should be a one-syllable word, because I don’t want to unnecessarily waste any time saying it. How about “Truh”? Like an abortive troll.