The slackers at the Oxford University Press USA, they who prepare the superfluous New Oxford American Dictionary have chosen “unfriend,” a louche locution from the world of social media, as the word of the year. I had occasion to unfriend a Quaker this year. Unfriending a Quaker is unfriending a Friend who may or may not be a friend, if you get the distinction. The Quaker in question was harassing me for my lack of libertarian, Ayn Randian principles. He was behaving in a lowercase “f” unfriendly way. (I’d suggest that his effort to harsh my mellow was also unFriendly, or unquakerly as some would have it, but nobody’s perfect). “Fuck this guy, ” I thought and I clicked the button that dissolved our Facebook relationship. Can’t say that I’ve missed him, nor I suspect does he miss me. Don’t really know why we friended each other in the first place, except that we’re both Friends who share a common bond of web tech.
Here’s what the American Oxonians have to say about their dismal choice of WOTY:
unfriend – verb – To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.
As in, “I decided to unfriend my roommate on Facebook after we had a fight.â€
“It has both currency and potential longevity,†notes Christine Lindberg, Senior Lexicographer for Oxford’s US 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. Most “un-†prefixed words are adjectives (unacceptable, unpleasant), and there are certainly some familiar “un-†verbs (uncap, unpack), but “unfriend†is different from the norm. It assumes a verb sense of “friend†that is really not used (at least not since maybe the 17th century!). Unfriend has real lex-appeal.â€
That bit about a verb sense of “[to] friend” that is really not used is dead wrong. Friending and unfriending of course are both used in the limited context of electronic network social media; a context likely to morph to something unrecognizable in the next few years (which would be 14 dog years and decades of internet time). The potential longevity of the verb “to unfriend” is tied to the predictably limited life of the walled garden that is Facebook. Meanwhile, the one-fortiers are all atwitter that a social media term beat out “teabagger” and “birther” for the prize.
I’ll wait for the verdict at Language Log, should they bother to comment. Meanwhile, Arnold Zwicky remarks on the rise of “douche” (which would have been my nominee for adjectival WOTY, particularly as it modifies “bag”).
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