As a verb, it means, “To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook,” states the NOAD blog.
“(Unfriend) has both currency and potential longevity,” said Christine Lindberg, senior lexicographer 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.”
Word choices prescient and inspired from technology
Though ‘unfriend’ is the first Internet-inspired word to receive the WOTY title, it is worthy to note that over the years majority of the Word of the Year choices have been prescient and to an extent inspired from technology, thus highlighting the rise of techspeak in mainstream language and culture.
Take hypermiling, for example. It was the 2008 Word of the Year. It is attempt to maximize gas mileage by making fuel-conserving adjustments to one’s car and one’s driving techniques.
Consider the Word of the Year 2005- podcasting. It is defined as a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player. There is no doubt that podcasting is a meaningful and useful term as these days a blog or website is incomplete without a podcast.
Other tech words to be nominated that year were rootkit, lifehack etc. Even in 2007, there were many tech nominations like bacn, cloudware, Locavore etc.
Word choices for 2009
Coming to the Word of the Year choices for this year, the other tech savvy words deemed finalists for 2009 were:
Hashtag – a # [hash] sign added to a word or phrase that enables Twitter users to search for tweets containing similarly tagged items etc.
Intexticated – used for people distracted due to texting on a cell phone while driving.
Netbook – a small and portable laptop computer.
Paywall – blocking access to a part of a website, which is only accessible to subscribers.
Sexting – the sending of sexually explicit texts and pictures through cellphone.
Words were also included from economy, politics and current affairs, environment etc.
Finalists from the economy included freemium, meaning a business model in which some basic services are provided for free; funemployed, meaning taking advantage of one’s newly unemployed status to have fun or pursue other interests.
The novelty words included deleb, meaning a dead celebrity; and Tramp stamp, meaning a tattoo on the lower back usually on woman.
Readers’ reactions
There is quite a buzz on online forums, where readers are discussing the word of the year. While some have applauded the announcement, others have derided it.
A reader named ‘yeah’ posted his view on CrunchGear, “i [sic] had been using unfriend since i was a toddler because i always thought the word befriend needed a partner/opposite/anotonym(?) and i was always told it wasn’t proper English. now i can say it’s in the oxford disctionary.”
Another reader name Maren commented on OUP blog, “The correct word for this action is “defriend” and not “unfriend”.”
“Add another voice of dissent for “it’s DEfriend, not UNfriend”. The prefix ‘de’ sounds more correct as an act of removal (eg delist, decouple) and anyway, no one uses ‘unfriend’,” stated a reader named Tastyfish on the same site.
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