Ramble On Ron » defriend http://www.rambleonron.com Diamonds, Music and other Facets of Life Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:27:14 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 “Unfriend” is Named Word of the Year And I Invented It! http://www.rambleonron.com/2009/11/26/%e2%80%9cunfriend%e2%80%9d-is-named-word-of-the-year-and-i-invented-it/ http://www.rambleonron.com/2009/11/26/%e2%80%9cunfriend%e2%80%9d-is-named-word-of-the-year-and-i-invented-it/#comments Thu, 26 Nov 2009 14:30:33 +0000 Ron Samuelson http://www.rambleonron.com/?p=471 “Unfriend” was named the Word Of The Year by Oxford Dictionary.  And guess who broke it first?  That’s right, RambleOnRon will take credit for that one.  It was this blog post titled “Unfriended On Facebook – Compliment or Diss?” that got the attention of Wall Street Journal tech reporter Jessica Vascellaro.  She then interviewed me and I ended up getting the infamous “hedcut” in the Wall Street Journal in a story titled, “OMG, We’re Not BFFs Anymore?  Getting ‘Unfriended’ Online Stings”.

WSJ 12/24/08

WSJ 12/24/08

That article really changed my life in a way.  It got me a lot of media attention and actually ended up spawning a new and very real friendship with a family member of the person who unfriended me.  All because of my Larry David like analysis of a loss of virtual friendship.

So how can I claim that I invented “Unfriend” you say?  Because after I wrote that blog post, which got THOUSANDS of hits, I got emails from little nerdy know-it-alls saying, “It’s DEfriend, not UNfriend!”  Well guess what?  It’s UNFRIEND and the Oxford dictionary says so!  If you’re playing scrabble guess which word you can now use?

So on this Thanksgiving Day let’s be thankful of all of our friends, real or virtual.  And think about using your privacy settings before unfriending.  However, I have been unfriended since and you can be sure that I will have the last laugh with those people too!

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