Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it.~Oscar Wilde

Word of the Year. Is there anything new under the sun? Apparently so.  Since the Great Vowel Shift took place in the South of England around the 15th Century, new words for the English language are continually being forged, both officially and un(officially).

Oxford University Press (and the New Oxford American Dictionary)  lead the way in dubbing modern vernacular worthy of the title, Word of the Year. All have heard the 2009 Word of the year by now,

What will the Word of the Year be in 2010?

UNFRIEND.

I was, by the way, recently unfriended by an old colleague who I went to seek a reference from. I think we exchanged subtly political barbs awhile back. I thought he could handle it since he is so much smarter than me but alas, I guess not. A moment of silence for my second (known) unfriending. The first was a mistake, of course which I quickly corrected for her.

But of course NO GENTLE READERS HERE have experienced the phenomena defined as follows, “To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook” courtesy of OUPBlog.

Two things I find delightful about the whole thing:

1. The process of choice and elimination by Oxford Press in elevating the status of word already chosen through popular demand  and the cultural significance of the honorable mentions (more Twitter, FB vernacular, Obama-speak, and texting-economy-environment) staples.

2. The heated,  particular, longing for accuracy debate and discussion about word meaning, source validity, and historical context of some of the words on the final list.  78 or so comments and several dozen track-backs prove that language does matter, meanings can be stolen and transformed by media and influential groups, and words truly are forever.

Until the next one comes along.

(P.S. I am not the strongest speller when I type but I have noticed that there are many words used today that still DO NOT show up in a spell-checker. Get with the times, people! The get a “pass” in unfriend but it’s time for “texting” to make the cut.)