Oxford English Dictionary Recognises ‘tweet’ as a Word
David Cameron once famously voiced his disgust at the incessant use of Twitter in a 2009 radio interview, but that hasn’t stopped the word ‘tweet’ officially entering the English language.
‘Tweet’ – to post a message to Twitter – has been included in the hallowed pages of the Oxford English Dictionary.
Although the word ‘tweet’ is already in the OED in relation to bird song, it now has an additional official definition in the June 2013 edition.
Twitter is an online phenomenon, with 340 million tweets posted every day. Even the Pope, known as the voice of God, and the Dalai Lama have Twitter feeds.
Because Twitter has become such an important part of daily life in such a short space of time, the dictionary’s editors were willing to bend their own rules to include ‘tweet’ in the OED, the accepted authority on the evolution of the English language.
John Simpson, chief editor, said: ‘The noun and verb tweet (in the social-networking sense) has just been added to the OED.
‘This breaks at least one OED rule, namely that a new word needs to be current for ten years before consideration for inclusion.’
He added: ‘But it seems to be catching on.’
Interestingly the OED had already added ‘retweet’ (sharing another’s tweet) as far back as 2011.
‘Tweet’ is just one of a number of technology words that will also enter the June 2013 edition, including big data, crowdsourcing, e-reader, mouseover, redirect (the noun), and stream (the verb).
A slightly more oddball entry is the phrase ‘to have a cow’.
The American slang term meaning, ‘to have a fit’, is often associated with the character Bart from the animated series The Simpsons, but the phrase actually dates back to 1959.
Mr Cameron was forced to apologise after he used the word ‘t***’ during a breakfast radio show interview.
When Absolute Radio host Christian O’Connell asked him about his views on Twitter, the Tory leader said: ‘The trouble with Twitter, the instantness of it – too many twits might make a t***.’
The power of Twitter has even helped shaped the U.S. elections. Barack Obama, Twitter’s third most-followed person, and his administration used it to rally voters and defend his reign as president in the 2012 election.
He famously posted a picture of himself embracing First Lady Michelle Obama with the words ‘Four more years’ after he won.
In December Pope Benedict XVI, using the papal account ‘Pontifex’, sent his first tweet. It read: ‘Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart.’
Source: Dailymail