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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.
Someone had to do it.
I cringe every time I hear the word 'tweet'.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Imagine imagine yourself reading the NYT archive from the 1920s and finding "flivver" or "flapper". Now imagine someone in a hundred years reading the archive of the now-current NYT and finding "tweet". Same deal.
He's may be too uptight* about it, but his idea is not completely without merit.
[*: 40 years ago?]
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
Sounds like good editorial policy to me.
"Tweet" is almost as bad as "blogosphere."
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
This obsession of tech companies with co-opting or coining their own verbs is pretty annoying. If you really must make words up, stick to proper nouns and quit polluting the rest of the namespace.
This doesn't sound like an Onion story to me. The Times is trying to establish a professional standard of writing, and "tweet" is a silly slang phrase that very well could be obsolete next year if Twitter is no longer as popular. The submitter's quip at the end is trying to turn this into a social media versus old media fight, but the Times is right on this one.
for those who "tweet" is "twat".
Much more fitting.
Yeah, man... things are never gonna change. EVER. Thinking otherwise is so old-school ~
The phrase "Google it" is used in common society as well, but who knows where the search engine giant will be 50 years from now?
Yes, it's a dictionary word, but one nice thing about these news institutions is that they provide a central archive of history and major events. Tweet is far more obscure and should be considered no different. Stick to professional language, please.
Of course, if somebody from the future looks back at newspapers from this time, they'll think that people like Lindsay Lohan were at the top of world-wide Monarchy....but that's beside the point.
No, it will not forever be the term. "Tweet" is a very Twitter-specific term, and a stupid one at that.
It is sloppy journalism. Being able to read and understand what is written in a newspaper today 100 years from now when "twitter" is something of the distant past is just as important, if not more important then how readable it is to people today. Good journalism seeks to make what is written clear and understandable to anyone who has at least a "basic" understanding of the language. The lazy gits that piss and moan about having to make their wording clear need a lesson in what being a journalist is.
Anyone of note still swapping news stories on Friendster? ICQ? Even myspace? Hey remember keyboard cat? Chat roulette?
Twitter has some longevity and will be around for 10 years at least, but I'll give it 3 more until its replaced by a new, better, fad. Actually scratch better. Twitter is inferior to almost every communication medium out there. Lets say, simpler, and by luck, more popular.
I was walking by some laptop users the other day and heard an ICQ "Incoming message" alarm. Lik
I always just get flashbacks on how BBS'es were going to change the world. There was a dutch innovation program, quite serious, started to have lots of "bbs" parts. X but with a BBS. Seemed very exciting back then, when I was young.
Now I see X but with social media and think "meh".
Will twitter be big? Sure. Same as BBS, the home page and lets not forget RSS. Are we now supposed to blog on our BBS home page and twitter the RSS feed?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Tweet is not standard English
English has no normative standards body, but a few U.S. dictionaries define "tweet" as "a weak chirping sound".
I'll bet people are tweeting this story even now....
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
In my humble opinion, "twit" seems a perfectly cromulent word for senders of Twitter messages.
Good on Mr. Corbett. I've held the same view since Twitter came along. "Tweet," "tweeting," "tweeted" - all completely ridiculous words conjured up for no good reason. For that matter, however, I consider Twitter itself to be completely fucking ridiculous, so perhaps my bias runs deeper than simple grammar.
"... 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..."
Nice snarky little jab there, but I find the notion of social networking sites supplanting established mass media and news to be as far-fetched as it is reprehensible. Maybe they work on a grassroots level as a bit of a 'complement' to traditional news, but other than that I see no indication whatsoever of them holding their own vis-à-vis peer review, integrity, fact-checking or social responsibility. If this does indeed happen (personally I believe the submitter was just grasping at straws), I'll hold even less hope for humanity in general than I already do, and that ain't much.
"We may face a scorched and lifeless earth, but they're accountable to their shareholders first."
Please tell me you did that - all of it - on purpose.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The verb google has already been added the new Merriam-Webster dictionary.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/google
your slow adoption of words make you sounds like a angry old man.
Words change and are created all the time, just because google was not a word when you were a kid and it sounds weird to you does not mean that to most 20 somethings it is not as much a part of the language and as professional to use as any other word.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Perhaps in your social circles, but not in mine.
There's only one person I know who even uses the word "tweet." Everyone else I know thinks it's stupid. Most people I know that use twitter still say "sent a twitter alert", "sent a twitter update", "posted to twitter", or "follow me on twitter" because "sent a tweet" and "follow my tweets" both sound about as stupid as Steve Ballmer sounded when he talked about "sending a squirt" or "squirting" data between devices.
No one can say for sure, but my money is on "tweet" becoming as archaic as it is juvenile & it will be largely forgotten.
http://twitter.com/shitmydadsays
Everyone else can eat a bag of dicks. Twitter is, to me, a one-liner joke delivery mechanism.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I love how after the definition it says "Learn more about 'google' with Bing - bing.com"
I have visited NYC a few times now and I sincerely hope you don't consider the native speech there to be representative of proper American English. It's a weird and extremely grating nasal abomination punctuated by such erudite phrases as "you douchebag, ya scumbag".
Picking that region and main newspaper for some "lesson" in proper speech is weird. It's completely alien to the rest of the nation. It really should be its own city state, I would be thrilled if they removed themselves from the US actually, or they were asked to just leave, and take their newspapers and so called financial "industry"-the white shoe boys gangster mafia-with them.
The New York Times does not publish in the dialect(s) of the common citizens of that New York City. It has been regarded as a "paper of record" for most of its existence and is more formal about adhering to an academic writing style than most other newspapers.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Post as a verb has been used since at least 1630 to mean 1 a : to publish, announce, or advertise by or as if by use of a placard b : to denounce by public notice c : to enter on a public listing
The word Internet is derived from the prefix inter- (carried on between) and network. Internet.
Both of your examples have their roots in standard English. Stop being obtuse. This is about using, for example, tissue over Kleenex or cotton swab over Q-tip.