Sexting?

The New Oxford American Dictionary has declared “unfriend”, a verb that means “to remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook”, as the word of the year.

Here’s a list of words that made it to the American dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary this year.

Searchability: The quality of being searchable. As in “If the website URL is easily memorised then it has higher searchability.” Example: Google, of course. The search begins there.

Sexting: The sending of sexually explicit texts and pictures by cellphone. As in “I was sexting my boyfriend because the seminar was putting me to sleep”.

Eucatstrophe: The opposite of catastrophe, a term coined by J.R.R. Tolkien. It means “the sudden joyous turn, not an ending, but the moment we get a glimpse of joy”.

Hashtag: A # [hash] sign added to a word or phrase that enables Twitter users to search for tweets (posts on the Twitter site) that contain similarly tagged items and view thematic sets. As in “#aintnothinglike spending money”.

Fudgesicle: A chocolate popsicle.

Intexticated: Being distracted because one is texting. “I almost had an accident as I was intexticated in the highway.”

Clintonesque

Swotty: Someone who is overtly studious. “You have to be really swotty to crack this MBA test.”

Clintonesque: Clinton is old, and an old word too, but parsing the English language so carefully that you avoid direct responsibility isn’t. “Don’t try a Clintonesque evasion. Did you or did you not wipe your hand?”

What new word should be added? Tell t2@abpmail.com