It was in Barbados that I first encountered the use of “unfair” as a verb. Our office was next to the Wanderers ground and I often wandered across to watch cricket. One day, this player who believed that he was given what in Trinidad would be called a “bad” out, was extremely upset when he came off the field and said, “The umpire unfaired me.” He did not say cheated or even “thiefed”, but “unfaired”.
Interestingly, I never heard the word “fair” used  as a verb. Had the cricketer survived the vociferous appeal, would he have said smugly or gloated victoriously, “The umpire faired me.”
All might not be fair in love and cricket, especially  if Shane Warne is pressuring the umpires with his constant appealing, but can one say, “It is better  to be unfaired than never to have been faired at all?”
I thought of this when I saw a news report that  the New Oxford American Dictionary declared  the word “unfriend” the 2009 Word Of The Year. “Unfriend” means deleting a “friend” on a social networking site such as Facebook. For those who don’t know what Facebook or social networking is about, Facebook is a free-access social networking website that is operated and privately owned by Facebook Inc.
The company says, “Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life.” According to the site Campus Firewatch, Facebook was founded in February 2004 and is a social utility that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and co-workers.
Facebook has more than 130 million active users, the average user has 100 friends on the site, 2.6 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide) and more than 13 million users update their statuses at least once each day. Since the network is about connecting with people in your life, the act of disconnection is, therefore, a big thing that can lead  to psychoses, neuroses, and other roses that prove  that life is not a bed of roses.
Commenting on the choice of “unfriend”, Oxford senior lexicographer Christine Lindberg is quoted as saying that the word has “both currency and potential longevity”. She added, “In the online social networking context, its meaning is understood, so its adoption  as a modern verb form makes this an interesting  choice for Word Of The Year.” 
Not knowing that the Bajans were there first,  she explained that most prefixed words beginning  with “un” were adjectives, such as “unacceptable”  or “unpleasant” and that there are certainly some familiar “un-” verbs (uncap, unpack), but “unfriend”  is different from the norm. 
“It assumes a verb sense of “friend” that is really  not used (at least not since maybe the 17th century!). ‘Unfriend’ has real lex-appeal.”
While “unfriend” has “lex” appeal, little do the Oxford lexicographers know that Trinidadians discovered that “friend” has sex appeal and used “friend” as a verb long before Facebook. It might actually make them twitter if they know.
The fact is that long before “unfriend”, Trinis had  a special meaning for “friend”. You would hear a man say, “Well I friending with Pamela long time now”,  or other people use the term, “She friending with he? That drunkard!” 
The word “friending” here has a distinctly sexual connotation. It goes beyond mere sleeping with someone and implies a relationship of sorts, generally one that is extra-marital.
True, nobody took the next linguistic step to say, “She unfriended with him because he beat her” or  “If you don’t leave your wife, I am unfriending you.” However, where there is friending, it stands to reason, particularly since it infringes on the marital zone,  that a lot of unfriending has also happened although  it might be by another name, like “horn” which is what Trinis call the act of being cuckolded. This has led  to terms like “horner man”, “horner woman” which, interestingly, might be related to, but not derived  from “horny”.
The choice of “unfriend” has broken what seemed to be a trend. Previous choices for the Word Of The Year were environmentally related – hypermiling (strategies to increase gas mileage such as removing roof racks  or overinflating tyres), locavore (eating only locally produced food) and carbon neutral (removing as much carbon from the environment as you put in so the next generation wouldn’t be unfaired).
With “unfriend” came some other words  from the cellular dimension. I like “Intexticated”  which means “the state of distraction caused by texting on a cellphone while driving a vehicle.” I suppose you can be given an e-ticket for that or the police can take  away your phone and de-mobilise you. Worse, unable  to communicate with your friends and family,  you might be left unfriended.
“Sexting” also came in for mention. While sending sexually explicit texts and pictures happens in Mexico, it is not only a Mex-ting but has gone global. As some parents have discovered, it can be very vex-ting.
Two other words chosen by Oxford are “Freemium” and “Funemployed.”  “Fremium” is a business model  in which some basic services are provided for free,  with the aim of enticing users to pay for additional, premium features or content. This is something  we’ve all experienced with software and “funemployed” which is taking advantage of being unemployed  to have some fun. In Trinidad, this is when you  start friending with somebody.
President Obama has caused the introduction  of two new words. One is “teabagger”, a term applied to those people who opposed his taxation policies and had local demonstrations called “tea parties” and “birther”, conspiracy theorists who challenge the President’s birth certificate. Given the way Obama’s popularity ratings have dropped, it is clear that a lot of them have already unfriended him. The question is, would he get a next term or would he be funemployed?
 
• Tony Deyal was last seen on Caribbean Airlines with some “exotic dancers” deported from Antigua. While they did not have stamped visas, they had “tramp stamps” or highly visible tattoos  on the lower back.