I’m glad to see at least one other person, Mathew Ingram, is on my side in one of the great Twitter debates, otherwise known as what to call an individual Twitter message. That is to say, he agrees with me that the word “tweet” sounds incredibly stupid. I think it sounds like something from out of the ’50s, or worse, like a bodily function. I understanding that “retweeting” is shorter than “retwittering,” and that with a 140 character limit, every character counts… but c’mon, guys.
About a month ago, I proposed that if we had to call them something other than Twitter messages, that we should call them “twits.” I doubt I can claim ownership of this idea, but I just found out about LiveTwitting, so maybe it’s catching on. Either way, I don’t care who gets credit for that coinage, I’ll just be happy if/when the word “tweet” goes out of style.
So, yeah, don’t be a twit and use “twit” instead of “tweet.”
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8 Comments
1 gaeyia wrote:
Twefinitions:
TWITTER – To speak rapidly and in a tremulous manner. Agitation or excitement; flutter. [The group Twitters.]
(to) TWEET – To utter a weak chirping sound. [The person Tweets.]
TWIT – (Slang) A foolishly annoying person. [We are Twits, Tweeters, Tweeple, Twittizens, Twitterati, etc.]
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/twitter
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/tweet
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/twit
2 gaeyia wrote:
Twefinitions:
TWITTER – To speak rapidly and in a tremulous manner. Agitation or excitement; flutter. [The group Twitters.]
(to) TWEET – To utter a weak chirping sound. [The person Tweets.]
TWIT – (Slang) A foolishly annoying person. [We are Twits, Tweeters, Tweeple, Twittizens, Twitterati, etc.]
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/twitter
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/tweet
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/twit
3 Barrington wrote:
I’m with Gaeyia, one tweets but we twitter. And sending a tweet is cuter than sending a twit, which just sounds plain wrong…
4 Barrington wrote:
I'm with Gaeyia, one tweets but we twitter. And sending a tweet is cuter than sending a twit, which just sounds plain wrong…
5 S. McGhee wrote:
Well said. I saw the use of the word twit as cowardice and an “oops – we backed our selves into a corner THIS time – again! We had better modify it and smugly go about our business as if it were foreseen that “tweet” was, all along, the right call on the verb form.”
Twits.
So from now on I will twit and risk it…
6 Kent, Clark wrote:
You loose either way…
7 Dean wrote:
Your very title points out the reason NOT to call it twiting. I don't want my communication associated with a word that connotates dim-wittedness. Going with the little birdie concept that Twitter provides, I think Tweet (while kind of sissified) is still more correct.
8 Jim wrote:
Twits use Twitter to make tweets.
I hope this clears things up.