The New Oxford American Dictionary has just made its announcement of the Word of the Year for 2009. "Unfriend" won out over several rivals to be declared the winner.
Just in case anyone does not already know this word, it means "to remove as a 'friend' from Facebook or other social networking sites." "Unfriend" also has the distinction of being a verb, whereas most words starting in "un-" are adjectives, like "unpleasant" or "uninformative" or "unknown."
"Unfriend" beat out several other technology words, including "hashtag," a word defined by the Oxford University Press blog as "a # [hash] sign added to a word or phrase that enables Twitter users to search for tweets (postings on the Twitter site) that contain similarly tagged items and view thematic sets." Right ... .
More apt are words such as "intexticated," to be distracted and dangerous through driving while texting. And perhaps we already have heard of "sexting," which means sending sexually graphic texts and images by cell phone. An article in the newspaper of the high school where I teach states that sexting is pervasive among teenagers. Fortunately, I only know what I read in the papers.
"Netbook" is probably the word that might have the greatest legs. It's an appropriate term for a very small computer designed to be used over the Internet. But the word, while fitting, just does not seem to have the splash of "unfriend." Christine Lindberg, senior lexicographer, said "Unfriend has real lex-appeal." Oh, those senior lexicographers must be by-gosh scintillating at parties.
Everyone who is on a social networking site knows that "friend" does not mean exactly what it means in the real world. Some of my friends are acquaintances of acquaintances or recent students from the past few years. (Current students are not allowed "friendship.") In other words, not friends in the normal sense. Still, social networking sites like Facebook can be the starting place for friendships. Or the graveyard, it seems.
I was fairly late to Facebook, but in addition to keeping up only with friends and family, I have become reacquainted with a number of former students who are early middle-aged, have been in more regular contact with friends I just didn't email that often and even have renewed the acquaintance of the girl I had such a crush on in ninth grade at Foster Junior High. (Back then I used to insert her name into the lyrics of a Hollies song that I also recently looked up on Youtube. I had not heard it since 1968.)
One of the great tools of the Internet has been AIM instant messaging. For years I have chatted with folks all over the place. I chat with my sister in Oregon almost daily, with my daughter off at college, with friends in Longview and even with a good mate of mine in Australia, where he's usually in the middle of the next day. The Internet has brought joy and companionship.
But it also brings the opposite. I used to be part of a circle of close friends, mostly guys from Longview or fellows I met in college, who used to exchange e-mails about politics, philosophy, culture, science and other issues. Eventually our differences drove us apart. Some went mute, at least online. Some are still friends. And some, alas, are not.
I unfriended someone a couple weeks back. I blocked his e-mails and instant messages. We had been very close friends at one time. Over the years we moved apart. So it goes. But I still wish prosperity and longevity to my new unfriend.
Frank Thomas Pool is a poet and English teacher working in Austin. He grew up on Maple Street in South Longview and graduated from Longview High School. E-mail: FrankT.Pool@gmail.com.
