A lot of stories have been flying around the blogosphere over the past few days highlighting which PR agencies are using Twitter and who has the most users. The tool has been embraced widely by Berkeley PR staff to communicate with each other in our different regional offices, as well as journalists and others in our industry. I personally have found it a great source of information and ideas.

That said and with my “bad news is always a good story” PR hat on, are we about to see a wealth of stories now about how Twitter is ruining the English language in much the same way as SMS was? With posts limited to just 140 characters many people are shortening their words in much the same way they do with the 160 character base of SMS. While exploring this concept I have come across a link to Shannon Yelland’s blog where she has posted a Twittonary listing the shorthand words regularly used on Twitter. It is quite comprehensive and proves that this isn’t something that is going to go away.

I do hope we don’t start seeing these type of stories as it does feel a little lazy and just a rehash of the SMS story. But if you do, you saw the idea first here.

That said, it wouldn’t shock me to see the English dictionary begin to include Twitter-related words as become accepted into everyday communications. A year ago I wouldn’t have had a clue what you meant if you said that you were a Tweeter. In fact I probably would have thought you had been drinking.

Paul Stallard