One of the stories that gets lots of press this time of the year is what word the dictionary publishers have chosen to be the Word of the Year. This year, the New Oxford American Dictionary featured “unfriend” as the word of the year. Jon Gordon of American Public Media’s Future Tense interviewed Ammon Shea, consulting editor with the Oxford University Press, on why his company made the decision to include “unfriend.”

The word is a verb, and means to remove a person from your list of contacts on social media networks. In a lot of cases, these folks have been referred to as “friends,” though depending on the network, you may or may not have a deep enough relationship with them to be actual friends with them.

Actually, just a couple of days later in Future Tense, some people said they use “defriend” instead. Shea said the publisher chose “unfriend” because the editors found it to be more common.