Tweet'. The booming popularity of online social networking sites has given the English
language a bumper crop of new words. Although some of these sites, and the words
associated with them, may prove to be short-lived, here today and gone tomorrow, there are
others, such as Facebook (see Series 4) which seem to be here to stay.
The latest ‘big thing’ in the world of digital media is Twitter, a social networking site which
began back in 2006 and has been growing ever since. Users post short ‘micro-blogs’
(messages) called ‘tweets’ - T-W-E-E-T-S - from their mobile phone or computer to let other
people know what they’re doing or to ask a question.
The difference between these and a normal text message or email is that a ‘tweet’ is ‘out
there’ in cyberspace, no more than 140 characters long and can be read or answered by
anybody on the network. Just like the words ‘google’ and ‘facebook’, ‘tweet’ can be used as a
noun or a verb. Twitter is increasingly used for market research, so many companies are now
asking themselves ‘To tweet or not to tweet?’
The popularity of Twitter grew after it was used by US presidential candidates before the
2008 election to keep their ‘followers’ up to date – Barack Obama had hundreds of thousands
of followers during the election campaign, although he seemed to stop tweeting shortly after
the election. I guess he must have been quite busy!
Twitter has spawned a number of related words such as ‘twestival’ (a gathering organised on
Twitter) and ‘twirgin’ (someone who is new to Twitter or a first-time user). In fact, if you see
an unfamiliar word which starts with a TW- prefix, it’s probably a new word coined by the
Twitter community. Some of these words may not make it into the dictionaries, but Twitter
seems set to live on.
Keep Your English Up To Date © British Broadcasting Corporation 2009
Page 2 of 2
bbclearningenglish.com
Jim Pettiward has a BA (hons) in French and Spanish, CTEFLA and Trinity TESOL Diploma.
He has taught EFL, EAP, ESP and Business English in Ecuador, Venezuela, Hungary and the
UK. He has also worked as an ICT trainer for the British Council and the University of the
Arts, London. He is currently teaching English for Academic Purposes in the Department of
Humanities, Arts, Languages and Education at London Metropolitan University
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الأحد يوليو 05, 2009 1:04 am
