Oxford University Press names 2009 Word of the Year

If you’ve ever gotten caught in the middle of a @malbiniak/ @rycera Twitter battle about how many spaces come after a period (it’s one), you know we nerds take our words/grammar/language/style seriously.

We don’t mess around.

It’s not like we were exactly waiting around with bated breath to see what would be 2009′s word of the year, but some of us were curious.

But now the wait is over. 2009′s word of the year is Unfriend: verb – To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.

If you head over to the OUP site, you’ll see a long list of other words that were in the running for word of the year including a bunch I’d never heard of like:
zombie bank – a financial institution whose liabilities are greater than its assets, but which continues to operate because of government support
choice mom – a person who chooses to be a single mother
deleb – a dead celebrity