I’v been unfriended on Facebook. I’ve not unfriended anybody (even though I’ve wanted to – I’m too polite.)
The word ‘unfriend’ is a product of a new era. There are many of them, mostly spoken by the ‘younger generation’ (although some are embraced by those more traditional media– take my new favourite is ‘pwned’, as in #mediawatch #pwnednudierun).
You don’t have to embrace new technology to love new words (but it helps to understand what the hell they mean).
The New Oxford American Dictionary has just named ‘unfriend’ as their Word of the Year. (If you don’t already know, it means deleting someone as a friend on a social network.
It’s a great word. It also reaffirms my view that it’s the norm to be rude and thoughtless in this day and age – it’s now perfectly acceptable to break up with someone via a text message, or completely ignore important business emails (but that’s another blog post).
Posted by Dana Minter
