Sexting tops survey for most annoying new tech-related word

"Sexting" has been voted the most annoying new word added to dictionaries because of new technology in the past year.

The term which means "sending of sexually explicit photographs or messages by mobile phone" is so annoying to people that it has won Computeractive's first annual "Unspeakable" award, for the latest, technology-related word most likely to make you wince, grimace or want to bang your head on the keyboard.

But it won't be the last. Every year the world of technology yields a fresh crop of hideous and often baffling new words. Although sexting was by far the most voted for word, irritating a quarter (24 per cent) of the 2,054 people who took part in our recent online Yougov survey of the 10 most annoying or horrible new words, there were others people found cringe-worthy.

These included in second place, intexicated (13 per cent) meaning being distracted by texting while driving (an illegal offence by the way). And third came Defriend (eight per cent), meaning to remove someone from your social networking friends list and in fourth place was Twittersphere (seven per cent). This latter word is the collective noun for all Tweets on Twitter.

Another Twitter 'word' Tweetup had six per cent of people surveyed frothing at the mouth, followed by Hactivist (five per cent of those surveyed). The word Clickjacking meaning to try to con people into revealing personal information made around four per cent of people annoyed, although few knew what it actually meant.

In at eighth place with a vote from three per cent of those surveyed were Twitpic, Dot-bomb and Scareware.