Oct 24, 2009

Google that, Facebook me and Tweet about it.

You can tell how stuff has changed/influenced our lives by how it has changed our language.

The linguist in me (and I like to claim there is one, haha) has emerged.

I was just thinking about it this morning (when my brain is at the edge of waking up but my body wasn't ready to get out of bed just yet), how proper nouns have evolved to become verbs, particularly around social media tools found on our booming and ever-growing world wide web.

The strongest proof point we have is Google, the world's most popular search engine.

"Go google it lah!"

You'll never hear someone say "I'll go Bing it." (oooh, 1st blow of the day).

What you might hear is "I'll google it on Bing." (2nd blow *dingdingding*)

Yahoo! tried to create a similar effect years ago, with "Do you Yahoo?" but I don't think it ever did catch on.

What about Facebook?

"Do you facebook?" "Yeah, I'm facebook-ing right now!"

Never have I heard anyone say "Come, Friendster me! I'm Friendster-ing." (3rd one, I'm ruthless)

My final proof point for the day: Twitter.

Twitter is major. They have a whole new twictionary for Twitter.

From twerds to Star Twekkies on Twitterverse, tweeple have successfully created a whole new bunch of twords (am I going overboard with this? haha) from one social media tool alone.

What gets to me the most is when someone says "Do you twit?" instead of "Do you tweet?"

Because you should know that a twit can tweet, but a tweet is not necessarily a twit. (I'll leave you to explore the meanings yourself, google it!)

All you need to do to make it offensive is add a comma in it: "Do you, twit?"

And so next time you're online, google your own name (I'm sure you have already!), facebook me and don't tweet rubbish. I indulge in occasional emotional twoutbursts on twitter, bear with me. I'm usually fine by the next tweet. =)

Till I write again, twoodles!

1 point(s) of view:

mark c. said...

“In the year 3000 YouTube, Twitter & Facebook will merge into one super time wasting website called YouTwitFace.” - Conan O' Brien, Talkshow host.

Hahahhaha.