6 ms·
NY Times' standards editor Phil Corbett can set whatever rules he wants for the paper, but his disdain for this verb isn't going to influence all of the blogs,
by Locke1689 16y ago
NY Times' standards editor Phil Corbett can set whatever rules he wants for the paper, but his disdain for this verb isn't going to influence all of the blogs, the social media, and other publications in using it.
I don't think he's trying to. I think he's saying that Twitter is not yet in the standard English lexicon and should therefore be postponed from appearance in the NYTimes. If at such time it does become as popular as Xerox or Google then perhaps they will reevaluate their stance. As far as his position on usage outside the NYTimes, he may personally dislike the world but professionally I don't think he cares either way.
- jfarmer 16y agoI was at a wedding two weeks ago, filled with non-technical, non-Silicon Valley folks and in one of the songs before the wedding they ad-libbed in the word "tweet" for "call" or "write" or some other verb. Everyone in the audience got the joke and laughed.
- deno 16y agoThough it should be noted that you only need just enough people to get the joke for a whole audience to laugh.
- mikeleeorg 16y agoThat's a good argument. I stand corrected.
- Tichy 16y agoSo by getting into the standard English lexicon (whatever that is??), every speaker of English automatically understands the word "tweet"? Fascinating how these old timers achieved automatic updates. What is the standard English lexicon, who maintains it, and why is it accepted as an authority? Why has it not been replaced by the internet yet?
- ramchip 16y agoYou seem to be seriously confused on the meaning of "lexicon". The standard English lexicon is defined as the words and expressions a standard English speaker knows. If everybody understands "tweet", then it is part of the lexicon, and nobody can decide otherwise.