Have You Been Unfriended?
In a post-modern globalized world, it has become fashionable to elect the muse of the year, the gaffe of the year, the movie of the year and so on. Even the Oxford Dictionary has jumped on the bandwagon.
Every year, the Oxford lexicographic team monitors the changes that the English language goes through. The neologisms are analyzed and those that reflect the ethos of the moment and demonstrate firepower and cultural relevance become strong candidates for “word of the year.”
In 2009, the elected word was “unfriend.” This word is not actually a neologism, as it existed for many years. It appears in the 1913 edition of the Webster‘s dictionary and means “enemy.” Moreover, it often appears in science fiction novels of the celebrated American writer Andre Alice Norton, in particular the best-seller The Crystal Gryphon.
Ok, just a reminder: neologism is the use of new words derived from others, or is the allocation of new meanings to existing words, as taught in the Concise Oxford Dictionary. Neologisms have always existed. Nothing against them! After all, no living language can be immutable. There are neologisms in all areas, but those in the media are obviously more detectable.
Unfriend was elected “word of the year” because it circulated the web not as a noun, but as a verb. Now it defines the elimination of undesirable people from your friend list on Orkut, Facebook and others.
If you make use of social networks, maybe you have already “unfriended” someone, or worse, have been “unfriended.” If so, how about you distract yourself a little from this by learning other neologisms less voted for, but that are fairly common online?
There is hashtag (a # [hash] sign added to a word or phrase that enables Twitter users to search for tweets that contain similarly tagged items and view thematic sets), there is intexticated (distracted because texting on a cell phone while driving a vehicle) and many more… Check the list at http://blog.oup.com/2009/11/unfriend or read more about the subject at http://www.worldwidewords.org/turnsofphrase/tp-unf1.htm.
And if you don’t put a comment here, I might end up unfriending you! =)
Eneida Vieira
was a Language Specialist for Ccaps and currently works for the company on a regular basis. With a Degree in Liberal Arts, she worked for a very long time at Cultura Inglesa and at Colégio Pedro II. She has previously dedicated to literary translation and has many works published by large Brazilian publishing houses such as Rocco, Martins Fontes and José Olympio. In 2006, she won the Monteiro Lobato award from the National Foundation of child and Youth Literature (FNLIJ) for the best translation for a young audience.
