This article raised an issue that has long agitated my tiny brain. That is the use of the ugly pseudo-verb “unfriend” to terminate a friendship on Facebook. If you must use “friend” as a verb (“After a long period of hostility, the US and Russia friended after Don the Con took office”), the stern rules of grammar require you to use a prefix. The proper prefix here is “de-” or “dis-”, as in deactivate” or “disengage”. In the case of “friend” this would give us “defriend” or “disfriend”.
But we are about to enter the Age of Trump, which requires us to invent a verb that is supremely grand, pretentious, pompous, braggadocious, lordly and verbose. I suggest “disenfriendify”. Applying this pattern to a possible future situation in which Don the Con might be deposed after taking office, we would get the neologism “disenpresidentify”. It could be used in a sentence like “Congress disenpresidentified Don the Con after it was revealed that, during an interview, he had grabbed Megyn Kelly by the [unmentionable word denoting a member of the feline species].”
Isn’t English fun?
Friendishly,
Ye Olde Pedant