According to TechCrunch and The Awl, the New York Times has decided to ditch the word “tweet” when referring to Twitter.
In an internal memo (which you can find in the above link on TechCrunch), New York Times standards editor Phil Corbett declared a fatwa on the use of the colloquial term, facetiously suggesting the word “Chirp” instead. His main arguments rests on the fact that the New York Times does not use “colloquialisms, neologisms, and jargon” and that the word “tweet” is all three. His other big comment is that while maybe Twitter might establish itself as a permanent fixture in the digital realm like e-mail or instant messaging, it’s far more likelier to be a fad. To which I say, bullshit, good sir. Everything on the internet lasts forever. You’d think the New York Times would know that.
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I can’t say I fault Standards Editor Corbett any, either. I mean, after all, the New York Times is our nation’s paper of record, and if they succumb to these momentary trends, then we’d all have to do it. Them’s the rules of news/blogging (those are equivalent terms, right?). I would also like to point out that we here at HipsterJew also don’t refer to Twitter by the boring, passe, “standard” conventions. On this site, we refer to our Twitter as the “Twatter,” highlighting how Twitter is one word away from referencing a certain part of the female anatomy (the vagina). I’m not sure if we use “tweet” though. I think we avoid that by simply not talking about it. Of course, the New York Times couldn’t print “Twatter” in their paper, so they can’t use it on the internet either (because they have an editor in charge of standards, meaning they have standards), but we certainly appreciate that they’re following our lead as best they can.
