CBS News – “Unfriend” the Word of the Year

(AP) What word sums up the year 2009?

How about “unfriend?”

That’s the New Oxford American Dictionary’s 2009 Word of the Year. It means to remove someone as a friend on a social networking site such as Facebook.

Each year Oxford University Press tracks how the English language is changing and chooses a word that best reflects the mood of the year.

Oxford lexicographer Christine Lindberg says “unfriend” has “real lex-appeal.”

Finalists for 2009 also included “netbook,” a small laptop, and “sexting,” the sending of sexually explicit texts and pictures by cell phone.

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