(AP) What word sums up the year 2009? How about "unfriend?" That's the New Oxford American Dictionary's 2009 Word of the Year. It means to remove someone as a friend on a social networking site such as Facebook. Each year Oxford University Press tracks how the English language is changing and chooses a word that best reflects the mood of the year. Oxford lexicographer Christine Lindberg says "unfriend" has "real lex-appeal."
Finalists for 2009 also included "netbook," a small laptop, and "sexting," the sending of sexually explicit texts and pictures by cell phone. Me: There was also "intextication" - distracted because of texting on a cell phone while driving a vehicle.
To be honest, I had never heard of the word "unfriend". I would simply refer to the act of deleting someone from my friends' list as...well...deleting. Who is responsible for these words being part of official lexicon though? Is there a committee? Is there a board that oversees these additions? Or is it just some lazy dude, who once a year, picks a word out of a hat and says "this is the word of the year"? I am confused. And how do I get a word included in the Oxford dictionary? An Avi-ism? I have plenty, some more profane than others, most made up while driving and in the throes of road rage, but who do I speak to to get a bligh? Who is the Oxford Daddy? Do you notice that social media is taking over the way we communicate in every way possible? My God! What's next??
But as we are talking about unfriending people, I have to confess that there are some actions which are quite unfriendly and which would warrant some unfriending if I did not love the people on my friends' list as much as I do. Because in reality, my friends' list is not an honour roll of people whom I would like to know, or who flattered me enough that I felt the burning desire to add them. My friends' list are actually...well...friends. But friends, friends....please don't do this to me.
The mass message/mass threads. You know...when someone sends a video or a link via Facebook message and then everyone replies filling up your inbox with junk. Sorry. Opinions. While this is all well and good that we are sharing and exchanging ideas and thoughts, can we do it somewhere else? Seriously? I have stopped tagging people in notes, except for my Grey's Anatomy notes, because I recognised it was annoying. In fact, this blog should serve as a single forum for things I may want to share and when I have updated, I post the link on MY page and it will end up on friends' feeds for them to do with as they please. If you want to share a video and get my feedback, just post the video and let me come find it. Don't do the mass email thing where all 20 of your other victims...umm...friends comment over and over, on and on, and as soon as I check one, the little number (1) appears next to my Inbox again. Just don't do it.
And because there is no way to unfriend myself from these messages, it persists and I get annoyed and then you ask, why I don't comment or give feedback. Now you know why. I don't want to be part of the spam parade quite frankly.
