Word War Over Unfriend

And the Word of the Year for 2009 from the New Oxford American Dictionary is....(drumroll, please)... unfriend.  A slightly mangled form of a word that has not been commonly used as a verb since ye olden days of Shakespeare and the like, but which has been made hugely popular by social media sites such as Facebook.  "Unfriend" wasn't the only new communication term to be nominated, with hashtag (a way of monitoring specific topics on Twitter) and sexting (a sexually explicit conversation via mobile phone texts) both being considered.

So what do we think of this new word of the year?  Well it certainly caused a lot of controversy, although not as much as the word teabagging, (if you hadn't figured it out, let me warn you that there is offensive language at the link) which was also considered.  Interestingly, the biggest source of debate is not the whether the word is worthy of it's prestigious new title, but whether it is the accurate term at all.  Many think that the correct word should have been "defriend".   Since the award is given to words for their popularity and adoption in every day language, there has been a call for a definitive answer over which version is correct.

My own two cents?  While I love language, and do believe that it deserves respect and care, I think that the majority of people commenting in the debate would probably be better spending their time learning new words from the dictionary that could have a more positive and productive use, rather than arguing over the correct term for cutting someone out of their virtual social lives.