When Twitter was set up, its founders considered a few names before settling on a word popularised in English by the poet Chaucer and meaning a short, inconsequential burst of information like that birds transmit in a chirp. Photo: AFP
Opinion
Opinion
Language Matters
From Chaucer via Jitter and Twitch, how Twitter got its name – and why posts were called tweets, not twits
- When Twitter’s founders sought a name for the platform, they considered Jitter and Twitch before settling on ‘twitter’, first used in English by Chaucer
- Posts on Twitter were at first called Twitterings; shortening this to twit, meaning a jibe or a fool, wasn’t on, hence tweet. Dictionary editors soon took note
When Twitter was set up, its founders considered a few names before settling on a word popularised in English by the poet Chaucer and meaning a short, inconsequential burst of information like that birds transmit in a chirp. Photo: AFP
