Twitter Etymology
You’d have to be living inside a dark shoebox at the end of the bed of a hermit who lives in a cave under the sea on a planet a million light years away not to have heard of Twitter at least in name over the past few months. With any service like this a whole host of neologisms spring up to describe the actions of users of the service.
“To Facebook” something is a prime example of an up-coming neologism relating to the act of updating your Facebook status, or otherwise engaging with the site.
Twitter has not escaped this curious evolution, and several words have entered the technological lexicon, some of which I aim to clarify:
- Twitter – The name for the service. A micro-blogging website for posting messages up to 140 characters long.
- Tweet – a message, public or otherwise, sent using Twitter. Can also be known as a mention, reply, direct message or retweet – all ultimately ‘tweets’. Definitely not twits; a twit is an idiot.
- (Re)Tweeted – having sent a tweet one could be said to have tweeted. One has tweeted a tweet on Twitter. Definitely not twittered a twit.
- Tweeter – someone who uses Twitter to tweet tweets at other tweeters. Definitely not a twitterer twittering twits and other twiterers.
Why am I bothered? It really gets to me in a fantastically anal way when people use words other than the above to describe their, or others, actions on Twitter. While Twitter might not quite make the OED (perhaps it has?) it’s certainly well established enough to be considered seriously – I am no twit.
The world works because people communicate using agreed standards; you might not think it but virtually every time you speak to someone you open the conversation with a greeting and end it with a farewell; hello and goodbye for example. Language is built around people using the same set of standards which is why dialect, colloquialisms and heavy accents can all lead to difficulties in communication – all the more reason to agree on some words and stick to them.
I may not be the most loquacious person in the world but I know a tweet from a twit a mile away!
Love it! I’m so glad you’ve drawn attention to these definitions. There’s one that really annoys me. I hear journalists ask their guests “Do you twitter?”. Wrong. Go to the bottom of the English class. The correct grammar is “Do you tweet?” Tweet is the verb. Twitter is the noun, in this case a proper noun because it’s the name of an application.
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I should also comment on my own post. You have referred to a “tweet” as a message, also a noun, which is fine. There are plenty of examples in English where a word takes the same form for noun or verb. I don’t know about you, but I find the idea of a verb “to twitter” really grates, and I prefer the form “to tweet”, but of course other people might disagree. Do you suppose the gurus at Twitter have these discussions? ‘Twould be interesting to hear their comments.
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James Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 12:50
As far as I know there is no officially defined standard for talking about tweeting – but I’d imagine that the people at Twitter use my convention rather than any other.
I agree, “do you twitter” grates on me too; hence the post!
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