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  • National Unfriend Day (17 November)

    From Ross Clark@21:1/5 to All on Sun Nov 17 22:49:01 2024
    Invented by Jimmy Kimmel, American TV person, 2010...
    "in an effort to remind everyone of the true meaning of friendship."
    ??
    The idea was to go through the list of your "friends" on Facebook (or
    Wadeva) and "unfriend" all those who were not really friends.
    "...any and everyone who does not add joy to your online, social
    networking experience."
    ??
    (Sigh) I guess I should admit that the reason I am not a social media
    guy is that the first time I ever heard of Facebook, somebody explained
    to me that on Facebook, you make a list of all your friends. What a
    waste of time, I thought, and have never since been tempted.to join the millions. Likewise I have been strangely unmoved by the attractions of a service which would enable me to follow everything Donald Trump says
    every day, or to send all my friends a picture of what I had for lunch.
    Now I guess I have no friends because I'm such an old grouch.

    But about "unfriend": It's an old word, says Crystal!
    Well, yes, there is a word like that, from early Middle English, but
    it's a noun (= 'enemy'):

    1275 We sollen slean houre onfrendes... (La3amon, Brut)

    Probably survived to the 17th century, then was exhumed (by Walter
    Scott, of course) and used somewhat in the 19th.

    Someone did, at least once, use that old word as a verb:

    1659 I Hope, Sir, that we are not mutually Un-friended by this
    Difference which hath happened betwixt us. (T.Fuller)

    But the modern verb is not attested before 2003. Crystal says "defriend"
    was a possible competitor for a while, but, no...

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From BlueManedHawk@21:1/5 to All on Sun Nov 17 17:30:26 2024
    The day also straight-up doesn't work anymore because, under a lot of
    social media platforms, the term ‘friend’ has different semantics than
    it does in reälity—perhaps the most common case is when a platform
    prohibits the unsolicited incitement of direct conversation with another
    who is not listed as a friend, turning the “friends list” into more of a “people i'm willing to get letters from list”.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)