Twitterspeak

A few weeks ago, I wrote a column in which I complained about being forced to write fewer words than usual. As a protest, I then petulantly switched to more concise languages, including teenage Twitterspeak, aboriginal Australian and also, in some places where my column was published, Hebrew.

2013 December 8, Gene Weingarten, “Repenting sins”, in Ray Rivera, editor, The Santa Fe New Mexican, 164th year, number 342, Santa Fe, N.M.: Ginny Sohn, →ISSN, →OCLC, page C-8, column 5

Not all members are fans of corny terms such as tweeple. Others think that the Twitter-specific language is fun or an easy and obvious way to delineate something as being Twitter-specific. Either way, whether you plan to use Twitterspeak or not, it does help to know what this stuff means. Plenty of eccentric people use Twitter, not to mention loads of subcultures and subcommunities. Just because you see an unfamiliar term doesn’t mean that it’s part of the Twitter vernacular.

2015, Laura Fitton, Anum Hussain, Brittany Leaning, with Michael E. Gruen and Leslie Poston, “Language and abbreviations”, in Twitter For Dummies (For Dummies), 3rd edition, Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., →ISBN, part III (Twittering in High Gear), chapter 7 (How to Tweet Like Tweeps Do), “Following Twitter Protocol” section, page 109

Tiring of the debate, Zimmer suggested that seeing as Kalanick wanted the last word, “I’ll let you have it so I can get to work.” He added the phrase “#respect”—which in Twitterspeak meant that Kalanick ought to have shown Zimmer some.

2017, Adam Lashinsky, “Growing Pains”, in Wild Ride: Inside Uber’s Quest for World Domination, New York, N.Y.: Portfolio/Penguin, →ISBN, page 117