Thursday 7 April 2011

Twilitics, or, the Language of Online

Has anyone named the process of creating a portmanteau between 'twitter' and another word, usually a verb? I just combined twitter and politics - and apart from feeling like a new-wave Sun-esque headline hack, I am honestly curious as the number of twitter-appended terms begins to rise.


There's no real thrust to today's post, merely that I was motivated by one of those interminable hashtag games that do the rounds on Facebook - this time initiated by the suddenly dynamic author behind @TheIPaper, twitter account for trendy supplemental i.

They'd run an excellent story by Steve Richards - available online here - where he discusses the atmosphere of hatred surrounding modern British politics. His headline was superb, a 'loathing' of politicians, and the twitterati - apologies, this will end soon - soon ran with the idea of coming up with a collective noun for our political masters.

You can view the results, and even take part, by pointing yourself towards #politicianplurals although you are up against some stiff competition, if I do say so myself.