New Oxford Dictionary Gets Intexticated with Facebook & Twitter

One of the most respected guardians of the English language is getting a linguistic makeover from social networking sites Facebook and Twitter, after the New Oxford American Dictionary gave in and decided to make the verb “unfriend” its word of the year for 2009. To “unfriend” someone is a term closely tied to Facebook, where users can remove any of their contacts from their friends list and thus block them from viewing their profile and receiving updates in their newsfeed. When Oxford University Press issued a press release Monday in order to explain its decision and show how a twenty-first century speaker of the English language might use its word of the year in a sentence, the dictionary publishers provided the context of two roommates falling out and hence “unfriending” each other on Facebook.

While popular Facebook terminology might have won the day in terms of convincing the Oxford Dictionary that they are owed a place in the respected halls of the English language, a whole range of words relating to social networking were runners up in the competition. For example, Oxford considered adding the Twitter term “hashtag” to its list. This word refers to a search tool on the social networking site allowing users to find other tweets containing similar keywords or tags.

Oxford even considered adding the term “intexticated”—not to be confused with intoxicated. This term refers to drivers who get distracted from the road by their constantly ringing mobile phone. The fact that the world’s most respected English dictionary is now working with words that are very new shows how much of an impact social networking has had on society.