The New Oxford American Dictionary declared unfriend the Word of the Year for 2009—a verb that needs no footnote to anyone who’s ever added a co-worker out of politeness and then recoiled at their updates about gout, MLM schemes, or soup.
Sure, some use unfriending as a passive-aggressive form of social theater. Not me. I keep my friends close and my enemies visible, ideally within reach of their Farmville yields and Mafia Wars stats.
I’m not a compulsive Facebooker, but I do a weekly lurk. I did once unfriend a girl from high school I’d spoken to exactly twice—she kept posting real-time dispatches from the heart of an abusive relationship. “He’s yelling at me right now and the kids are crying!” And the most disturbing part? I didn’t feel concern. Just… disgusted voyeurism, like a stranger had flashed me on the subway. So I banished her. Click. “I smite thee from thine orb of cohorts.”
Of the other nominees for Word of the Year, I had a soft spot for intexticated (because it’s delightful to say), funemployed (because it sounds like a state of grace), birther (because that entire sideshow felt like a failed SNL sketch), and teabagger (because, well, I’m not made of stone). As for tramp stamp—lexicographers may just be catching on, but the rest of us have been trading that gem since dial-up.
