Please do not Facebook me. It ruffles my English teacher sensibilities.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not opposed to interaction in the social media arena, as long as you use good grammar! I have a profile, I update my status from time to time. I check in with my friends and family pretty regularly to see what they are up to. I check on my daughter a lot!
Nope, it’s how you use the word that is the problem. Facebook is not a verb. How can you Facebook me? It’s so “In Your Face.” It sounds almost painful.
Please feel free to contact me on Facebook, through Facebook, with Facebook. I simply request that you do not do it directly to me. Facebook is a proper noun–although I have noticed that all is not always proper on Facebook!
I’m not sure why I have such a strong reaction to this emerging colloquialism. I was not so resistant to googling. In fact, I embraced it. I encourage my children to google stuff all of the time. I even offer to engage with them. “Let’s google it,” I cheerfully say as I walk towards the computer (or ask my teenager to get out her phone.)
I have come to accept that I text, I blog and, if I had it in me, I’d even scrapbook.
I remember once my sister described a friend’s son as being out “Bar Mitzvahing.” That sure sounds like fun. I wish we lived in a place where there were so many Jewish kids that mine were at a Bar or Bat Mitzvah celebration every weekend. I’ll accept that as a verb any day!
Facebooking does not work for me. Never one to judge, I will not comment on how you choose to spend your time or invest your energy. I extend that basic respect towards you (did you know that disrespect is also not a verb?)
I simply request that you reciprocate in kind. Feel free to contact me, but please don’t Facebook me. Like I said before, it makes me uncomfortable.
Being Jewish in Hawaii 
Nov 20, 2012 @ 22:32:28
Lorrie, I totally agree! (another former school teacher here…..) The butchering of the English language just annoys me so much. An example that I see/hear daily in a local T.V. ad includes ” Shop us and you will save.” ….didn’t know “shop” was a transitive verb. But the
most annoying to me is the practice of using “fun” as an
adjective, i.e., “a fun party”. Aunt Barb
Nov 20, 2012 @ 23:32:52
Hi Aunt Barbie. Being my mother’s daughter, I guess I am willing to accept the word shop in any of its hybrid forms! I am probably guilty of using fun as an adjective–I’ll be more aware of it now and have “lots” of fun with it in its reasonably adequate noun form! Aloha, Lorrie
Nov 20, 2012 @ 22:50:51
I stand corrected, then. I thought “facebooking”, “messaging”, “friending” and unfriending” were all verbs.
Nov 20, 2012 @ 23:30:41
Somehow adding the ing to it makes it much more tolerable. It is something you are doing as opposed to something you do to somebody! “I am facebooking” feels much more innocuous than “I facebooked you.” I guess you could say the same for friending and unfriending!