It took some time for parents (the baby boomers) to understand what it meant when we said we were “IMing” or “texting.”
Then came blogging, podcasting, and vodcasting.
By this point, if the baby boomers weren’t following the new generations’ every move, then they were utterly lost and could be found googling “BRB” and “LOL” just to understand what their son or daughter had said to them. Now to be fair, there are many baby boomers that have made a decent effort to keep up with technology and the lingo, but I for one would throw my laptop out the window if I heard my mother say or type “LMAO” (laugh my ass off-for those of you about to google the acronym). I am all for parents keeping their fingers on the pulse of their son or daughter’s culture, but when they start speaking in techy tongue, then they might as well try to fit in a pair of leather pants from high school and really look like they’re trying too hard.
So for those of us who like to keep our parents on their toes (and stay ahead of the social techy world), here’s some new lingo to send your parents running to google: “Twitter” and “Tweet”
“Twitter” is a “social networking and microblogging service utilizing instant messaging, SMS or a web interface.” The 140-character message that you type and share on Twitter is called a “tweet.” In addition to being a noun, “tweet” is also a verb that could be defined as “the act of typing and sending a message on twitter” (example: I “tweeted” about The Hatchet last night, did you see it?).
For those of you not using Twitter, I highly recommend that you give it a try and exercise your language brevity with the 140-character limit per tweet. Less is more (except when it comes to tea, cupcakes and books about words).
Tagged: baby boomers, podcasting, technology talks, texting, tweet, twitter, vodcasting
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For those of you who went ahead and checked out twitter and maybe even signed up, then you’re in luck (well it depends on how you define luck). I created a twitter account for The Word to share some more wordy goodness, so follow me at http://twitter.com/the_word. I’ll be linking to The Word posts and encouraging word conversation. I will also be seeking out any words that you would like me to investigate! Happy communicating!