‘Unfriend’ becomes a part of the English Language?

The Oxford English Dictionary just announced its Word of the Year for 2009. What is it? the word is ‘Unfriend’.

It would appear that the official definition is:

“Unfriend: To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.”

It’s good publicity for Facebook at least.

I’m not sure who or what dictated these Words Of The Year but I suppose that more than 300 Million Facebook users is enough of a populous to give some form of dictation to culture and put another word, officially, into our language.

I wonder if the term ‘Friend’ has been given another meaning? Maybe, “Friend: to add, list, follow or stalk another social networking site such as Facebook.”

Other terms that were considered for the prestigious title of Word Of The Year included:

Hashtag – a Twitter term for helping users group together and search tweets.

Intexticated (a new one for me) – distracted because you’re texting. i.e texting while driving.

Netbook – a small laptop

Paywall – a subscription page or service that prohibits site visitors from viewing content.

Sexting – sending explicit text, SMS, or MMS messages to a persons phone.

See more in the Oxford University Press Blog