Elon Musk wants to turn tweets into 'X's". But changing language is not quite so simple
San Francisco: Elon Musk may want to send “tweet” back to the birds, but the ubiquitous term for posting on the site he now calls X is here to stay — at least for now.
For one, the word is still plastered all over the site formerly known as Twitter. Write a post, you still need to press a blue button that says “tweet” to publish it. To repost it, you still tap “retweet.”
But it's more than that.
With “tweets,” Twitter accomplished in just a few years something few companies have done in a lifetime: It became a verb and implanted itself into the lexicon of America and the world. Upending that takes more than a top-down declaration, even if it is from the owner of Twitter-turned-X, who also happens to be one of the world's richest men.
“Language has always come from the people that use it on a day-to-day basis. And it can’t be controlled, it can’t be created, it can’t be morphed. You don’t get to decide it,” said Nick Bilton, the author of “Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal” about Twitter’s origins.
Twitter didn't start out as Twitter. It was “twttr” — without vowels, which was the trend in 2006 when the platform launched and SMS texting was wildly popular. The iPhone only came out in 2007.
Twitter co-founder Evan Williams "went one day and purchased the vowels, two vowels for essentially $7,500 each,” when he bought the URL for twitter.com from a bird enthusiast, Bilton said.
At the beginning, people didn't “tweet” — it was "I'm going to twitter this," Bilton recalled. But “twittered” doesn't roll off the tongue and “tweet” soon took over, first in the Twitter office, then San Francisco, then everywhere.
We've been tweeting for well over a decade. World leaders, celebrities and athletes, dissidents in repressive regimes, propaganda trolls, sex workers and religious icons, meme queens and actual queens. Former president Donald Trump's incendiary use of the bird app quickly punted “tweet” into near-constant headlines during his presidency. People who never signed up for Twitter knew what the word meant.
For now, we still tweet, retweet and quote tweet, and sometimes — perhaps not often enough — delete tweets. News sites embed tweets in their stories and TV programs scroll them. No other social network has a word for posting that’s entered the vernacular like “tweet” — though Google did the same for “googling."
The Oxford English Dictionary added “tweet” in 2011. Merriam-Webster followed in 2013. The Associated Press Stylebook entered it in 2010.
“Getting into the dictionary is an indication that people are already using it,” said Jack Lynch, a Rutgers University English professor who studies the history of language. “Dictionaries are usually pretty tentative or cautious about letting new words in, especially for new phenomena, because they don’t want things to be just a flash in the pan.”
As Twitter grew into a global communications platform and struggled with misinformation, trolls and hate speech, its friendly brand image remained. The bluebird icon evokes a smile, like the Amazon up-turned-arrow smile — in contrast to the X that Musk has imposed.
Martin Grasser was two years out of art school when Twitter hired him for the logo redesign in 2011. His wasn’t the first bird logo for Twitter, but it would be the most enduring.
“They knew they wanted a bird. So we weren’t starting completely over, but they wanted it to be on par with Apple and Nike. That was really brief,” he said.
Twitter launched Grasser's design in May 2012; the company went public on Wall Street later that year.
One early in-house design shown to Grasser looked like “a flying goose with a tail. It looked kind of like a dragon. It was crazy,” he said. Jack Dorsey, another co-founder (and twice-CEO) wanted something simpler.
The bird represented a vision of Twitter as a friendly place “where everyone can weigh in and chat,” Grasser said.
“The round form evokes a sense of optimism, the bird even being sort of turned upward, as corny as that sounds, I think is different than a bird flying down or flat," he said. "We wanted to give it this idea of like soaring.″
The word “Twitter” itself is playful, as is “tweet.” This was no accident, Bilton said.
Other names that floated as the platform started out included “Status” and “Friend Stalker.”
It was Noah Glass, another co-founder who never quite got the credit he deserved for his role in hatching Twitter, who had the winning idea.
Glass, Bilton said, “had been thinking about like heartbeats and emotions. He was going through a divorce and he literally went through the dictionary word by word until he came across the word twitter. And he just knew instantly that was it.”
“He was one of the four founders who had the emotional intelligence to be able to understand that this was about connecting with humans,” Bilton said. “It was inviting, it was emotional. It was about connecting with humans and your friends and your loved ones.”
Musk began his quest erasing Twitter's corporate culture and image in favor of his own vision as soon as he took over the company in October 2022. He lost three-quarters of the company's staff through firings, layoffs and voluntary departures, auctioned off furniture and décor, and upended policies on hate speech and misinformation. The rebranding to X was no surprise.
Twitter’s rebranding is rooted in ambition that Musk began to pursue nearly a quarter century ago after he sold his first startup, Zip2, to Compaq Computer. He set out to create a one-stop digital shop for finance called X.com — an “everything” service that would provide bank accounts, process payments, make loans and handle investments.
He has not given up on the dream. Twitter is now X, falling in line with Musk’s other X-named brands, SpaceX and Tesla’s Model X. Not to mention his young son, whom he calls “X.”
His goal for X is to turn it into an “everything” app — for video, photos, messaging, payments and other services, although he has given few details. For now, X.com is still, essentially Twitter.com, even as the bluebird and other playful tidbits start to disappear.
“There used to be a saying inside Twitter that Twitter was the company that couldn’t kill itself. I think that still rings true, whether it’s called Twitter or X,” Bilton said.
“I think that it’s kind of become a fabric of society. And even Elon Musk may not be able to break it.”
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LoP Ashoka targets CM govt over corruption, says being 'shameless' in public life not forgivable
Bengaluru (PTI): Targeting Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and the Congress government in Karnataka on corruption, BJP leader R Ashoka on Friday said, being foolish was forgivable, but being "shameless" in public life was not.
The Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly claimed that in just 30 months of its tenure, the Congress administration has broken every previous record on corruption-related controversies.
He was responding to Siddaramaiah's post on 'X' on Thursday hitting back at the BJP, stating that Upa Lokayukta Justice Veerappa's claims of "63 per cent corruption" were based on his report in November 2019, when BJP's B S Yediyurappa was the CM.
"But Ashoka, without understanding the Upa Lokayukta's statement properly, has ended up tying the BJP's own bells of sins onto our heads and has effectively shot himself in the foot," the CM had said, as he accused Ashoka of foolishness for trying to twist Veerappa's statement to target the current government.
Responding, Ashoka said, "it is one thing to be called foolish in politics, that can be forgiven."
"But in public life, especially in the Chief Minister's chair, one must never become shameless," Ashoka posted on 'X' on Friday addressing Siddaramaiah.
Noting that the CM himself had admitted on the floor of the Assembly that a Rs 87 crore scam took place in the Valmiki Development Corporation, he said that when a CM acknowledges such a massive irregularity inside the floor of the House, the natural expectation is immediate action and accountability.
"But instead of taking responsibility, you continue in office as if nothing has happened. What should the people of Karnataka call this, if not sheer shamelessness," he asked.
Pointing out that the CM's Economic Advisor and senior Congress MLA Basavaraja Rayareddy had publicly stated that under Congress rule, Karnataka has become No.1 in corruption, Ashoka said, "Yet, you still cling to the Chief Minister's chair without a moment of introspection. What should the people of Karnataka call this, if not sheer shamelessness."
Senior Congress MLA C R Patil had exposed the "money for House" racket in the Housing Department and even warned that the government would collapse if the details he has were made public, Ashoka said.
"Despite such serious allegations from within your own party (Congress), you neither initiated an inquiry nor acted against the concerned minister. What should the people of Karnataka call this, if not sheer shamelessness," Ashoka asked the CM.
Highlighting the "40 percent commission" allegation Congress made against the previous BJP government, the opposition leader said, the commission that the Siddaramaiah government appointed concluded that the accusation was baseless.
"After your own panel demolished your own claim, what moral right do you have to continue repeating that allegation. What should the people of Karnataka call this, if not sheer shamelessness," he asked.
For the last two and a half years, Karnataka has been 'drowning' in corruption, scandals, irregularities and allegations across departments. Ashoka said, "If I begin listing every case that emerged under your government, even 24 hours would not be enough."
"And the most tragic aspect of your administration is this: the unbearable pressure, corruption demands and administrative harassment under your government pushed several officers and contractors into extreme distress - including the suicide of Chandrasekharan which exposed the Valmiki Development Corporation scam - a sign of how deeply broken the system has become under your watch," he said.
Instead of fixing this hopeless environment, the government has tried to bury every complaint and silence every voice, he charged.
"Being foolish is forgivable, but being shameless in public life is definitely not."
"When your own ministers admit scams, when your own advisors certify Karnataka as No.1 in corruption, and when your own MLAs expose rackets inside your departments - clinging to power without accountability is not leadership. It is shamelessness in its purest form." PTI KSU
Earlier on Thursday Ashoka had demanded that the corruption case and allegations in the state against the Congress government be handed over to a CBI investigation, citing a reported statement by Upalokaykta Justice Veerappa alleging "63 per cent corruption", following which Siddaramaiah hit back at the BJP leader.
