Whilst on our honeymoon, we met a very nice chap who has, in my opinion, one of the most interesting jobs in the world.
He researches new words for the Oxford English Dictionary.
It was the perfect opportunity to ask him whether there are plans for the OED to introduce the word ‘Twitter’ into the next edition. Alas, I did not.
Barely a month later, it turns out that the Collins English Dictionary is about to do just that. The definition of Twitter will be: “a website where people can post short messages about their current activities” and under verb it will read: “to write short messages on the Twitter website”.
And not just ‘Twitter’, the word ‘Twitterati’ will appear, meaning celebrity users of Twitter, and the ‘Twitterverse’, meaning all of the activity directly relating to the website. Elaine Higgleton, Collins editorial director, told the Daily Mail:
Hardly a day goes by when you don’t see some Twitter-related article. Hence I find it entirely unsurprising that this year we have not one Twitter-related entry in the dictionary, but three.
The 10-billionth Tweet was sent recently and the site now has 1.8-million users.