Self-anointed guardians of the English language show an amazing, amusing lack of respect for the language they purport to protect.
Phil Corbett, Standards Editor of the New York Times, decreed this week that tweet was not “standard English” and thus not fit for the news columns of the Times, except under special conditions, perhaps a doctor’s excuse or a note from the bird’s mother.
One of my favorite things about our language is how fluid, inventive and expressive it is. We don’t speak or write now as they did in the age of Chaucer or Shakespeare, or even in the groovy 1960s when I was growing up. Yet each new word or expression is vigorously resisted by people who cherish the past of language but wish to deny it a future.
Corbett’s message telling Times journalists to eschew the word (first reported by The Awl on Thursday) drips with disapproval (use of boldface is mine, highlighting words I will note in comments later):
Some social-media fans may disagree, but outside of ornithological contexts, “tweet” has not yet achieved the status of standard English. And standard English is what we should use in news articles.
Except for special effect, we try to avoid colloquialisms, neologisms and jargon. And “tweet” — as a noun or a verb, referring to messages on Twitter — is all three. Yet it has appeared 18 times in articles in the past month, in a range of sections.
Of course, 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 over the latest jargon or buzzwords.
One test is to ask yourself whether people outside of a target group regularly employ the terms in question. Many people use Twitter, but many don’t; my guess is that few in the latter group routinely refer to “tweets” or “tweeting.” Someday, “tweet” may be as common as “e-mail.” Or another service may elbow Twitter aside next year, and “tweet” may fade into oblivion. (Of course, it doesn’t help that the word itself seems so inherently silly.)
“Tweet” may be acceptable occasionally for special effect. But let’s look for deft, English alternatives: use Twitter, post to or on Twitter, write on Twitter, a Twitter message, a Twitter update. Or, once you’ve established that Twitter is the medium, simply use “say” or “write.”
Eight points about this:
- I like to refrain from guessing myself, but since Corbett’s edict was based on conjecture (I was not aware that the standards of the New York Times included guessing), I think it would be appropriate in this context. And I’m going to guess that more people routinely refer to tweets or tweeting than routinely use ornithological, paleolithic or neologisms, but any of those words could appear in the Times without a single paragraph of disapproval from the Standards Editor, much less five paragraphs. If you want facts, rather than guesses about how regularly or routinely a word is used, I googled some words Corbett used: Tweet gets 73 million hits (most, I’m guessing not in the ornithological context), to 1 million each for ornithological and paleolithic and 385,000 for neologism. Hmmm, I wonder if Corbett would bless the use of “google” (another inherently silly word) as a verb?
- Furthermore, I am going to guess that in pursuing news stories, the New York Times prefers establishing facts in its news reporting, rather than holding back to wait for other news media to establish them. And it’s no guess to state that ordinary journalism is not the standard for the New York Times.
- The dictionary defines deft as “dexterous; nimble; skillful; clever.” None of those words applies to Corbett’s clumsy use of two and three words where one would suffice.
- How arrogant to decide whether a word is used in the Times based on an editor’s opinion of how serious it is. Is the Times as demanding of words that are inherently stuffy as it is of this allegedly silly word?
- Tweet is hardly the latest jargon. Twitter was a well-known and widely discussed phenomenon at least two years ago. Last year, Twitter’s role in telling the story of the unrest in Iran was a major (and not silly) international story. Vuvuzela is the latest jargon (to the Times’ largely American audience anyway). Did I miss Corbett’s memo insisting that Times writers instead write “loud, plastic stadium horn” in their World Cup coverage? By comparison, tweet is actually well established.
- You know, the New York Times has written a fair amount about Twitter. Is Corbett suggesting that Times readers are not smart enough to learn after all that reporting what a tweet is?
- If the word has appeared 18 times in recent Times articles (and probably would have appeared more, if not edited out by editors sharing Corbett’s dim view), might that not indicate that tweet is in wider use than he suggests?
- Much of the world spells email without a hyphen. I presume the Times will drop that nonsense about when it grudgingly accepts tweet. In that vein, I can’t help pointing out that BFF, a colloquialism used on the Gray Lady’s front page Friday morning, doesn’t have periods, except in the Times. When you use a colloquialism for special effect, please use it correctly.
Amusingly, Corbett told Yahoo! News that The Awl’s headline, ‘New York Times’ Bans the Word ‘Tweet’ was mistaken (again, the boldface is mine, for later reference):
“I think it wouldn’t really be right to say the word’s banned,” Corbett told Yahoo! News after the Awl’s post quickly bounced around the Twitterverse.
As for banning, Corbett said he doesn’t actually have the power to issue such decrees. “I can’t even convince people to use ‘who’ and ‘whom’ correctly,” he said.
“It’s guidance,” he said. “It’s trying to put people on alert that, in my humble opinion, ‘tweet’ is a word that hasn’t become … dictionary-level standard English.”
Five points on that:
- Given Corbett’s respect for the dictionary, I checked the meaning of ban. I think the “informal denunciation” definition certainly fits. And perhaps the “ecclesiastical curse” definition.
- I need to find an appropriate word for Corbett’s efforts to downplay his proclamation, one old-fashioned enough to pass New York Times muster: balderdash. He is the Standards Editor, and the announcement of his appointment described that position as the “newsroom’s voice for all standards and ethics questions relating to content and news coverage, both in the printed newspaper and on the web.” If that person declares that a word doesn’t meet the standards, it’s been banned, even if it occasionally slips through, like a misused who or whom.
- I normally don’t correct people’s word usage because that’s such an annoying thing to do, but in this context, I think it’s appropriate to note that Corbett misused convince. As an old copy editor, I know (and Corbett should know, too, if he doesn’t) that you convince someone of a point of view, say that using who and whom correctly is important. You persuade someone to action, such as using who and whom correctly.
- On the other hand, Corbett is correct that this meaning of tweet has not yet made the dictionary. But let’s be honest, in covering the news, it would not be acceptable for the New York Times, or any news organization, to move at dictionary speed. You’re not the New York Behind-the-Times.
- While the dictionary doesn’t yet bless tweet, the American Dialect Society (which was probably a year behind) proclaimed it the 2009 Word of the Year.
For what it’s worth, the AP Stylebook (which has differed through the years with the Times on other matters, too) approves the use of tweet, as noted, appropriately, in a tweet from @APStylebook. AP even blessed retweet. (Alas, @FakeAPStylebook has not yet weighed in on the matter.) Slate was sympathetic to Corbett’s distaste for tweet.
I should note that Times staffers have been smart and aggressive in their use of Twitter. Jennifer Preston has done a nice job in her year as social media editor. I enjoy following the tweets of several current and former Times staffers: Nick Kristof, Jenny 8. Lee, Patrick LaForge, David Carr, David Pogue, Tim O’Brien. @nytimes is approaching 2.4 million followers and has posted more than 46,000 tweets (does Corbett have the clout to change that word on the Times’ Twitter page?). Print circulation is 1.4 million on Sunday, less than 1 million daily.
Preston and LaForge downplayed the fuss to their tweeps:
NYT_JenPreston @rar624 Been out of the office this week, but going in this afternoon. Will touch base later. Note. This is not new. It has always been. palafo @ditzkoff @erickschonfield Right. “Tweet” is discouraged in inappropriate contexts, and shouldn’t be overused, but it’s not banned. palafo @ChrisSerico No backlash. Inaccurate headline on a blog. There’ s no debate, either. This is the style rule. palafo @ChrisSerico We don’t “ban” words. We do have guidelines on colloquialisms, neologisms and slang. But we don’t follow rules out window. palafo And, for the last time: No, we didn’t ban “tweet.” @manikarthik @zaibatsu: @Twitter_Tips: @Dudeman718 @Techmeme
Preston asked her tweeps for their thoughts:
NYT_JenPreston Been out of the office this week. Lots of questions about usage of “tweet.” Slate also looking for ideas. http://bit.ly/aaT2ij Thoughts?
And the tweeps responded:
dsilverman @NYT_JenPreston Tweet is cloying but avoiding it is, as Corbett feared, ‘paleolithic’. Anyone using ‘tweeple’ or ‘tweeps’ should be shot. joshspero @NYT_JenPreston This is typical NYT prissiness – refusal to admit modern world to copy. See also: Web site instead of standard website. kunur this annoys me. if google is a word, so is tweet. RT @NYT_JenPreston: questions about usage of “tweet.” http://bit.ly/aaT2ij Thoughts?
I made one more guess: that Corbett, whom I can’t find on Twitter (and who will notice that I’m using who and whom correctly here), delivered this edict without consulting Preston. So I asked her (by Twitter direct message) and she confirmed: “I didn’t know it was coming.”
As with the tweeps, she tried to downplay Corbett’s memo: “But it is not new. It is old news.” I suspect she knows better. The memo from the Standards Editor was new, even if tweet was already frowned upon. And when the Standards Editor of the New York Times doesn’t understand how our language is changing, that’s news.
Discouraging the word “tweet” doesn’t bother me. Reminding writers that some words call attention to themselves, distracting readers from the point of a story, isn’t a bad thing.
Anyway, in reference to your first first point, Google does indeed show about 97 million hits for “tweet”. But it returns 119 million hits for “tweet” on pages without the word “Twitter”. Take that for what you will.
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Ha. I like #4 in your first list.
I don’t think words like “tweet” should be banned — in fact, by using them properly, the newspaper is doing a service to readers: expanding vocabulary for those who don’t know the word!
But I do understand the point I think Corbett is *trying* to make. Twitter is important, growing, used by a lot of people. But there are still a whole lot of folks who don’t use Twitter (and maybe those people aren’t reading the NYT). The Twitterverse is, in some ways, a bubble. People on Twitter sometimes forget that there’s a whole world outside of Twitter, filled with people who don’t use it and wouldn’t know what “tweet” meant. (I can attest to this because I’ve been living in a suburb for the last year, and not one of my friends here tweets. Very different crowd than the people I associate with online.)
So, maybe rather than banning “tweet,” it’d be good to remind reporters that not everyone is on their playing field when it comes to social media, and to use “tweet” in context that doubles as an explainer.
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Hi Steve,
As I said yesterday, I was out of the office last week so am just catching up on the “burning” controversy over our standard editor’s concerns about the word “tweet.” As I said yesterday, this is not new. We have been reminded by Phil Corbett and other editors over the last year to avoid the word “tweet” when writing articles and blog posts. (I remember “tweeting” about it. Also, if you look at our Twitter sharing language on nytimes.com, it says, post to Twitter. Not tweet. )
Honestly? I can’t excited about this. I am thankful for editors, like Phil, and for the fine English teachers who insist we think about clarity and the words we choose.
Let’s think about this from the reader’s perspective since clarity is always the goal. If you are not a Twitter user, I can understand that it might be confusing if you read in an article that someone “tweeted” something. What does that convey? So, if you choose to write instead, “shared on Twitter,” or “posted to Twitter,” you are conveying that someone is sharing information/making a blog post on a platform. And basically, that is what we are doing on Twitter, right? We are blogging 140 characters at a time. As writers, I would argue that we need to be mindful of the needs of our readers — the users — at all times. For now, sharing on Twitter, posting to Twitter, — whatever — seems the best way to communicate to readers what users on Twitter are doing. On the Twitter platform, I feel comfortable using tweet and rt since users presumably know what I am talking about.
Now, as the birds are tweeting outside my window and I am about to hit “submit comment, ” I wish I had an editor to share this with first. If I could pick a couple of editors, it would be Strunk and White. What would the authors of The Elements of Style have to say about all this? (I think they would agree with Phil. 🙂 Jennifer Preston, social media editor..@nyt_jenpreston.
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Steve,
Interesting post. Thanks for re-posting some of the explanations from my Twitter stream.
Phil Corbett consulted me on this. I’m the editor in charge of the copy desks and have been a heavy user of Twitter, almost from the start, when tweets were called “updates.” I agree with his memo, and I know that our social media editor, Jennifer Preston, does, too.
We have been enjoying the responses. A little conservatism in language has always been part of The Times’s appeal. We think word choices matter.
Even on Twitter, many reactions have been positive to this guideline. It isn’t a ban, and it isn’t new. It’s just a reminder about our philosophy on colloquial language in the news report.
It could be that in a few years this will be a universally understood term that draws no negative reaction from any readers. But we like to wait before jumping on a bandwagon, especially with words that promote a particular business. We also discourage “Google” as a verb, and I am sure Google’s trademark lawyers appreciate it. Such a generic use would endanger the mark. (Note that people still say “tissue” and “photocopies,” while Kleenex and Xerox probably yearn for yesteryear.)
This guideline on “tweet” (always lower-case, as it is not a trademark) is a suggestion to our writers that they avoid overusing this twee word in the wrong contexts. You will still see the word in New York Times features and columns, blog posts and elsewhere, without a peep from the editors who review style matters. I don’t plan to stop using it in conversation or on Twitter. It saves characters.
But we’d rather not have it peppered throughout the news report — including in serious or somber articles. Nor do we want to see overwrought and stilted phrases that attempt to avoid it when the word is appropriate. Most of the time, simple commonplace words — post, update, said — will work just fine. And often enough, we’ll just tweet.
Cheers,
Patrick
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If you’re going to say the Times should follow the AP in approving “tweet,” how can you then abuse Corbett for for following AP style in writing “e-mail”?
Also, the Associated Press is the last place I would look for what “hip” words are OK. They JUST changed “Web site” to “website.” It’s got to be individual papers’ styles that change first, and I honestly don’t think it should yet. The people that are laughing at “tweet” being banned are complaining about it ON TWITTER. What about the people that don’t use the service? We’re not hearing from them because they’re excluded from our sweet new social media. But I’m pretty sure they don’t give two shits about “tweet,” because in reality is IS a “Twitter message.”
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Thanks to all for your comments. While I disagree, I don’t want to respond point by point. I had my say and I appreciate your thoughtful responses. I emailed my friend Merrill Perlman, a former New York Times copy desk chief, and she sent this response:
It all comes down to audience. If the audience is likely to know what Twitter is, fine, tweet away. But news organizations are in the business of explaining, not confusing, and context is important. If a story in the Wall Street Journal has BP complaining about a fake Twitter account, the story is about BP, with a side of Twitter. Many people reading it may not be familiar with Twitter. The kind thing to do would be to use Twitter as the proper noun and focus the other words around it: A Twitter message; posted on Twitter, etc.
On a blog, or in a story all about Twitter, you could use it, though; to not would be silly.
The Times didn’t ban the use of “tweet.” It advised against its overuse, and in keeping with its overall tone that “we favor established usage and ordinary words over the latest jargon or buzzwords.” The Times is still very conservative, usage wise. Its overall philosophy is to wait until jargon and colloquialisms have settled deep into common usage — and the most conservative dictionaries — before allowing their use. Hence “host” as a verb was adopted only recently, and “Web site” is still the style there, and contractions are still eschewed except in chattier contexts. It’s a tonal choice, not an anti-societal one, much as it might seem to the cool kids.
Though it’ s a side issue, as an open source company, Twitter doesn’t seem to care about protecting words like ‘twitter” as a verb. (My column, to be posted Monday, is about trademarks, and mentions that.) AP, you know, which has become a lot quicker in adjusting style in recent years, allows “tweet” as a verb or noun: “The verb is to tweet, tweeted. A Twitter message is known as a tweet.”
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[…] is a quickie coffee post, dashed off while watching the U.S.-England World Cup match and discussing the propriety of promiscuously using “tweet” in news articles. First, a word about B. Koffie‘s […]
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The New York Times should be proactive and assimilate tweet into its pages.
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To me, the oddest justification for this guidance is the “outside-the-target-group” test. Is this a test used only for neologisms, or for the vocabulary of the Times as a whole?
I ask because I’ve recently been trying to balance my exposure to #oilspill eschatology with articles about the arts, particularly dance. And as someone who is outside that particular target group (but still well-read and in possession of a perfect verbal SAT score), I’ve still had to google like hell to understand many of the dance articles. Obviously, the words that have stumped me are by no means new, but they’re still quite jargony.
How is “tweet” — which I’d wager has a much larger “target audience” — any different?
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Here’s the difference: The many other words that the Times uses that are outside (or on the edge of) the vocabularies of people who read them do not annoy Times editors. The key word in Corbett’s non-ban was “silly.” Stuffy jargon makes it into the Times every day on nearly every page with nary a discouraging word from the Standards Editor. And “tweet” has made its way so thoroughly into the culture (and been covered so thoroughly in the Times) that it is laughable to say that far and away most Times readers, even those who don’t use Twitter, don’t at least understand that a tweet is something published on Twitter.
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Becky,
We also warn our writers against jargon and fancy words. Just because they slip through into copy does not mean they are consistent with our style guidelines.
Phil Corbett addressed the topic of unfamiliar words in this recent memo:
http://topics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/08/50-fancy-words/
Cuteness is not the main objection to “tweet.” The governing rule here is the entry in the Times stylebook on colloquialisms:
“Words bearing the label colloquial (or its equivalent, informal), in the dictionary or in this manual, occur naturally in speech and in writing that emulates the casualness of speech. Expressions like kids, hole up, trendy, pricey and for kicks are examples. They should be confined to features and light contexts (often in style, sports and the arts), and used without quotation marks or other signs of self-consciousness. The fresh effect can curdle, though, if the phrases chosen are faddish (like flap, meaning a fuss). Also see slang.”
Even this entry is not a “ban,” but merely a guideline for writing that appears in the news report. We never advocate following a rule out the window. We just want our writers and editors to think twice about word choices in the news report.
For completeness, here is the stylebook entry on slang:
“Words bearing this label, in the dictionary or in this manual, are highly informal, usually flippant and often coined as a badge of membership in an in-group (for example, teenagers, the military, the underworld or the police). When used unmistakably for special effect — perp, say, to evoke the flavor of byplay in a feature about a police station — they are welcome, without quotation marks or other signs of self-consciousness. Do not use slang, though, in straightforward copy or headlines, where it would hit a clinker — that is, undermine the seriousness of the reporting. No one would be likely to write that negotiators snookered a diplomat or celebrated afterward by getting smashed. But the writer’s ear should be attuned to the infiltration of more current slang, like in-your-face and rip-off; it can create the embarrassing spectacle of a grown-up who tries to pass for an adolescent. Some slang expressions will evolve into standard English. Others, like crunch (for showdown) and edgy (on the cutting edge), show up so relentlessly that they vault overnight from the novel to the hackneyed.”
Tweet is not yet in many dictionaries, but it is clearly colloquial, with slang origins.
Usage is always shifting, of course. New coinages survive and enter the mainstream. In these matters, The Times is conservative, and deliberately so. But we enjoy watching language grow and change, and we’re not wagging our fingers at anybody. We’re just aiming for consistency in our own style for addressing a large, general audience.
I’d like to thank Steve for the entertaining post and follow-up discussion.
Patrick LaForge
Editor, copy desks
@palafo on Twitter
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Thanks for your thoughtful responses, Patrick. Though we don’t agree on this, I appreciate your detailed response and the collegial way with which you and Jennifer have joined this discussion.
Your defense of the Times’ conservatism on the topic of language strikes me as odd in at least three respects:
1. To be such a slow — deliberately delayed — follower of language evolution is an odd contrast to the Times’ status as a leader in so many respects.
2. The proud insistence on rejecting current language, as I noted in the post, is an odd contrast to the timeliness of Times content. Your mission is to be current in every respect except for language.
3. You say you do this for consistency (though news stories and features get different treatment, because features apparently aren’t serious). You say that you haven’t “banned” “tweet,” just discouraged use in “guidelines.” (I hear echoes of Jack Sparrow from “Pirates of the Caribbean.”) And you want to avoid the “embarrassing spectacle of a grown-up who tries to pass for an adolescent.” But the result is not at all consistent (the “B.F.F.” reference in Friday’s page-one Carly Fiornia story was an LOL occasion for people who use BFF). Perhaps it’s time to reassess your approach to language, rather than just explaining and defending it.
Again, thanks. Though the explanations haven’t cleared my confusion or changed my mind, I appreciate the spirit in which you offer them.
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I, too, enjoyed Corbett’s misuse of convince for persuade.
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