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'Unfriend': a verb for future generations
本文作者： 21ST
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EVERY year, new words and phrases emerge out of the online ether. Some grow outdated even before they reach mainstream society. Others seem to have a more lasting significance. Such is the case with the New Oxford American Dictionary's 2009 word of the year – "unfriend". This is a verb meaning to "remove someone as a ‘friend' on a social networking site such as Facebook".
According to a statement on the Oxford University Press website, most words beginning with "un-" are adjectives, like "unfamiliar". "There are certainly some familiar ‘un-' verbs (uncap, unpack)," explains Christine Lindberg, senior lexicographer for Oxford's US dictionary program. "But ‘unfriend' assumes a verb sense of ‘friend' that is really not used – at least not since maybe the 17th century!"
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