November 17, 2009
“Unfriend” named word of the year
This week, the New Oxford American Dictionary announced its 2009 Word of the Year: “unfriend.”
Unfriend, a verb, means “to remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.”
The choice points to the prevalence of social networking in our culture. In fact, a lot of the new words considered for Word of the Year grew out of our collective obsession with being connected to our networks.
For example, take “hashtag” (a # [hash] sign added to a word or phrase that enables Twitter users to search for tweets that contain similarly tagged items and view thematic sets), “intexticated” (distracted because texting on a cellphone while driving a vehicle), and every tween’s parents’ nightmare, “sexting” (the sending of sexually explicit texts and pictures by cellphone).
Some considerations come from current issues in politics and the economy, such as “death panel” (a theoretical body that determines which patients deserve to live, when care is rationed) and “funemployed” (taking advantage of one’s newly unemployed status to have fun or pursue other interests), while others, like “deleb” (a dead celebrity) and “tramp stamp” (a tattoo on the lower back, usually on a woman), tend toward the frivolous.
I wonder what’s in store for our vocabulary in 2010 …
Filed by rebecca at 9:09 pm under For the love of words
Rebecca, reading this may me realize I may have to finally concede that I am middle aged. I am mildly horrified that deleb and tramp stamp have received a stamp of legitimacy. Yikes, I too wonder what 2010 has in store.
Karen,
I feel like our vocabulary is degrading by the year …
Hmmm, funemployed is definitely my husband. Although he would vehemently disagree, I’m sure. And he may be right, but only the basis that he is not newly unemployed, but has been for a year.
Anyway. Those words were all new to me! I have to say, they sound rather…teenagerish and uneducated, but I admit to liking “intexticated.” Some of them are pretty clever, but in general they sound too much like magazine or blog jargon to me.
Ah well. Here’s to us, the flag wavers for what soon may be dubbed 21-century Old English!
Jargon — that’s exactly what a lot of these sound like to me, too, Steph! I mean, do any of them have real staying power? Will anyone know what “hashtag,” “sexting,” and “unfriend” mean in 50 years? This linguistic curmudgeon says no.