As many of you have already heard, "retweet" was added to the Oxford English Dictionary this week. Social media lingo can be overheard in almost any conversation on the street, and now, it's taking over the dictionary.
The official definition is:
- Pronunciation:/riːˈtwiːt/
- verb: (on the social networking service Twitter) repost or forward (a message posted by another user). Noun: are posted or forwarded message on Twitter"
"Follower" also has a new definition: "someone who is tracking a particular person, group, etc. on a social networking site."
These words join their close relatives - the initialisms - added earlier this year to the OED like LOL and OMG. No one has time to say, let alone text or e-mail, full words these days. Everything is better shortened. Def.
What cyber words do you think are next to become official in the English language? My friends often use "trend" as a verb, as in "I'll trend it." I'm guilty of using "hash tag" as a verb as well. It's also only a matter of time before GTFO and LMFAO are added to the initialisms family.
Tell me your thoughts.
Sidenote: I also love that "woot" was added this week. It's about time...