friend, the verb

[Wilson Gray]

FWIW, I've twice suffered the indignity of defriendment and have
likewise twice inflicted this indignity upon others.

-Wilson

On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 7:30 PM, Benjamin Zimmer
<bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: friend, the verb
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 5:47 PM, Marc Velasco <marcjvelasco at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Have we had this on here before?  If so, apologies for a re-post.
>>
>> ESPN columnist:
>>
>> Then again, I won money on the Broncos last week. I wouldn't just slow-clap
>> Ed Hochuli, I'd probably hug him or try _to friend_ him on Facebook.
>>
>> I can't imagine that's the first time it's been used in print, but it's the
>> first time I noticed it.
>
> It's come up here a few times. In Dec. '04 I apparently thought
> "(de)friend" was already too passe for WOTY consideration:
>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0412E&L=ADS-L&P=R3148
>
> In retrospect, it would have made a good candidate. Livejournal and
> Friendster popularized the verb in '03, but it really took off with
> Facebook in '04.
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>
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>



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