Tuesday, November 17, 2009

I'm unfriending the dictionary

Apparently the word of the year is unfriend-(the act of removing a contact on a social networking site such as face book.) I understand that the dictionary needs to include new words every year to keep up with how the English language is growing and changing, but really, unfriend? It bothers me that this was even one of the words considered for addition to the dictionary. What did it beat out to get this honor?
Hash tag for one. Honestly I think that hash tag would have made more sense to add to the dictionary considering that Twitter has become more than the micro blog it was intended to be and "hash tag" isn't as self-explanatory as unfriend. It doesn't take a seasoned etymologist to understand what unfriend means. I get that most of the words being added recently have been centered in modern technology-technology is the most rapidly advancing aspect of our country except for maybe our national debt.
All of this makes me think of how the language is continually bastardized until it is just a mockery of its original form. It really makes me sad to see such a decline, but if there is one thing that I have noticed is most "english speakers" don't speak true english. I guess the word being added to the dictionary shouldn't bother me too much, I mean, most people don't ever pick up a dictionary anyway.
Oh yeah funny tidbit, the spell check on this blog keeps telling me that unfriend is not a word.

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