I'm going to "unfriend" the Oxford English Dictionary

Good morning, Clint.

Just so you know, "unfriend" is the new word of the year for 2009. This means it's in the dictionary. Seriously.

I guess I have to give it to them for trying to keep up with modern speech. However, what the OED is doing is facilitating the death of the English language. I know, I know. I'm old and this isn't a new complaint. But let me explain the way I feel about this...

I think that the way people speak and the way that they write should be different. There are established rules for the way people write: verbs, nouns, adjectives, punctuation, grammar, etc. There are even words that are appropriate for speech and words that are appropriate for writing. I think that colloquialisms are great. I use them all the time when I'm speaking. However, I think there should be some more formal approach for writing. Even when we're joking around on this blog, we still write correctly and consider grammar seriously. But that's just me.

I guess it's really not that big of a deal. In ten years it will probably be irrelevant and my kids will wonder what "unfriend" means. Ah well...at least they didn't pick "sexting" (even though that was a finalist...no really, it was).

Last year it was "bailout" and the year before it was "subprime". I really do like the word for 2006. "Plutoed": demoted or devalued, as happened to the former planet Pluto. Hilarious.