Sunday, 29 January 2012

Twrevoltion

Tweeting Twitterhea to your tweeps sounds like something a toddler would babble, but with the evolution of Twitter came a new language, Twitterese, incorporating the "tw" at the beginning of words to associate them with the social network site Twitter.  Micro blogs which people post are called "tweets", the people who follow your posts are known as your "tweeps" and people who decide to reduce their time on twitter start a vow of Twabstinence.

Definitions for these examples and many other twitterese words are found in an online Twittonary.

The language associated to Twitter is another example of the effects sites such as Facebook and the increasing popularity of blogging are having on our language.  In the same way that different parts of Scotland have different dialects, social media has developed its own dialects.  Blogging uses mostly a personal, and author determined way of communicating specific topics, thoughts and ramblings.  Blogs can be pictures, videos or written, depending on the bloggers preference.  Facebook uses various media to share information.  A facebook status can be long or short and are often personal snippets of information.  Twitter is microblogging, with a 140 character limit.  This can restrict the amount of information posted and the language used is often abbreviated, making tweets short and simple.

Twitter terms such as re-tweet are now making their way into the Oxford Dictionary.  10 years ago using language like "unfollow" was deemed grammatically incorrect, these days it is used in everyday speech.  Language always evolves, we don't all speak Shakespearean or like they did in a Jane Austin novel.

The twrevolution is simply adding to the modern English language and it will be interesting to see if it is still commonly used in 10 years time.

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