New York Times Bans Use of Word "Tweet"

An anonymous reader writes "New York Times standards editor Phil Corbett has had enough of his journalists' sloppy writing. Their offense? Using the 'inherently silly' word 'tweet' 18 times in the last month. In an internal memo obtained by theawl.com, he orders his writers to use alternatives, such as '"use Twitter" ... or "a Twitter update."' He admits that ' ... new technology terms sprout and spread faster than ever. And we don't want to seem paleolithic. But we favor established usage and ordinary words ...' After all, he points out, ' ... another service may elbow Twitter aside next year, and "tweet" may fade into oblivion.' Of course, it is also possible that social media sites will elbow paleolithic media into oblivion, and Mr. Corbett will no longer have to worry about word use." While this sounds like it could as well be an Onion story, the memo is being widely reported.

Comments

A weak chirping sound

[tepples]

Tweet is not standard English

English has no normative standards body, but a few U.S. dictionaries define "tweet" as "a weak chirping sound".

Re:Gained respect for NYT

[digitig]

Tweet is not standard English, at least not yet.

According to the Complete Oxford English Dictionary:
"tweet, n. and int. An imitation of the note of a small bird. Also repeated."
"Hence tweet v. trans., to utter in this way, to twitter; also transf." [my emphasis]
It's been standard English since the middle of the 19th century. With variant spellings it goes back at least as far as the 16th century.