Twitter fever fails to grip Humphrys

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black - Twits [1] calling those who don't, 'Twits'...



As I said Here, I suspect that Mr Humphrys wise words about Twitter and those who Tweet [2] have cause him to rise in many peoples opinions, certainly has mine!



[1] "Twits": those who use Twitter

[2] "Tweet": The act of posting a comment to Twitter

Good for John Humphrys



I run a business without a mobile (its only for emergencies like when my wife has forgotten her bank pin), can't text and certainly wouldn't ever want to twitter, or is it tweeter. That's for the birds.

None of the ‘Today’ team – presenters, producers, editors, assistant editors, deputy editors ever supported the ‘Today’ messageboards either. The same applied to the Desert Island Discs team.



There used to be an R4 messageboard entitled ‘Altruists’ Alert’. Contributors would post questions relating to the world of radio. There wasn’t one occasion when a member of the Radio 4 staff helped out with an answer. Clearly few people at R4 actually believe the slogan: ‘Radio 4 curious minds’.

Twitter is a commercial site, one of many blogging and social network services. The BBC should not be promoting one commerical site over others, which it is clearly doing with Twitter.



Perhaps if the BBC had spent as much time promoting a British-owned social networking site, Friends Reunited, as it has promoting Twitter, ITV would be in less financial trouble than it is today.

#5. At 09:44am on 04 Sep 2009, steve_bowbrick wrote:



"Essentially, although Twitter is self-evidently a commercial company, its service has taken on something of the character of infrastructure. This often happens on the Internet - Google is the other obvious example - and the increased rate of change in communications technology makes it likely it'll happen more often."



Steve, the point is, the BBC should not be pushing one commercial website down it's readers/listeners/viewers (metaphorical) throats, it's just as wrong to keep mentioning "Twitter" as it would be "Google" to describe an action to take or taken, whilst I as an individual might well suggest that someone searched Google for the "Meaning of Life" someone from the BBC should be brand neutral, just saying that someone used a search engine to find the "Meaning of Life". If you see what I mean?



Common usage of a word doesn't make the use of the word correct.

I think what boilerplated means we have to wait for the latest edition of the OED allow us to use the word in 'common speech'. However I sure s/he will continue to twitter away about this.

#7. At 9:10pm on 07 Sep 2009, cping500 wrote:



"I think what boilerplated means we have to wait for the latest edition of the OED allow us to use the word in 'common speech'."



No "cping500", I mean what I said, there doesn't need to be any additional interpretation, it's a simple statement of fact, Common usage of a word doesn't make the use of the word correct, it makes no difference if the word is contained within the OED or not - for example it would be wrong to describe the action of using a Dyson vacuum cleaner as "Hoovering" the carpet, one would be vacuuming the carpet, just as one can micro-blog without using Twitter, one can access downloadable MP3 files (either manually or via a download manager) without having to use an iPod and thus a "Podcast".

Boilerplated - You are 1000% correct - just as it is inaccurate to refer to a generic 'cashpoint' as the trademark on Cashpoint is owned by Lloyds Banking Group. And likewise JCB for diggers and Portakabin for temporary office buildings. Just try using those out of context, and wait for the lawyers letters to arrive !!!