Those of you avid gamers our there may appreciate this… avid board gamers that is. The Oxford Dictionary has decided that social media and it’s lexicon is more than a passing fad. Good news for scrabble players as you now have one more word in your arsenal. I think everyone on sharenotes.com is familiar with the term “unfriend”, we’ve all done it or perhaps had it done to us. If you’ve been living in suspended animation for the past few years I’ll enlighten you. Unfriending is simply the action by which you remove a so called “friend” from your friends list on any given social media site. The site du jour right now is of course, Facebook, but it’s applicable to any social media site.
The New Oxford American dictionary has deemed this term it’s “word of the year” beating out such contenders as the salacious “sexting” and the less exciting but none less used “netbook” for top honors. The term, a verb (exe: she made me mad so I unfriended her!) is probably one of the most used terms on college campuses, so some congratulations should go to us for bringing the term into the mainstream.
Most likely due to the rampant popularity of social sites these days, unfriend should have some major legs. While it’s not nearly as exciting as sexting it should be around to stay. In past years the focus on the word of the year was more oriented on a greener Earth, with terms like Hypermilers (people who squeeze obscene mileage out of their vehicles with modifications and driving techniques) and carbon-neutral (offsetting your carbon footprint). What the word will be next year is really anyone’s guess at this point. There’s a good bet though that the life styles of those of us on sharenotes.com will absolutely have some impact on where it may come from.
