The New Oxford American dictionary has named “unfriend” as the 2009 Word of the Year, which literally means removing someone as a friend on popular social networking websites like Facebook and Friendster.
The word was chosen from a pool of finalists with a technology savvy lineage, Oxford said in a statement.
Oxford’s US dictionary program senior lexicographer Christine Lindberg said that the word was chosen among other finalist for its currency and potential longevity characteristics.
“It has an exact definition or meaning when being used as a verb or an action word by the online community. Its meaning is understood, because of this, the adoption of ‘unfriend’ as a modern form of verb makes it more interesting to be chosen as the Word of the Year,” Lindberg added.
Other finalists came from economic terms, technological trends, political, and current affairs as chosen by the Britain Oxford University Press, the publisher of the said dictionary.
For technology, “hashtag” was also named, which means a hash sign connected to a word or a phrase that allows users of popular microblogging website Twitter to search similar tweets; also chosen was “intexticated,” which literally means texting-while-driving; and “sexting,” which from the rootword means sending sexually explicit messages and MMS through cellphones.
Meanwhile, among the top choices for the economy terms were “freemium,” which means basic services that are offered free in some forms of business models; and “funemployed,” which refers to people or an individual taking advantage of his newly acquired status of being unemployed by pursuing or having fun with his own interest.
For the political and current affairs category, “birther, ”which refers to a person or a group conspiring or having a conspiracy theory regarding the birth certificate of United States President Barack Obama; and “choice mom,” which can be simply put as a single mother by choice.
Other words that made it to the shortlist of the Word of the Year 2009 were “deleb” or a dead celebrity; and “tramp stamp” or a tattoo on the lower back of a female.
Source:
http://www.socialnetworks10.com/new-oxford-names-facebook%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Cunfriend%E2%80%9D-as-word-of-the-year-2009
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