Twitter is a loud, angry noise of people hollering all kinds of stuff. It’s a casual free-for-all with friends bantering about their day, their work, their trials and their triumphs. I love how open and honest it is. Polished marketing-style people come off as fake and plastic.
But then we get guys like @RodSloane trying to hold up his finger and tell us to shush. Today, Rod spouted off, “No matter how frustrated you are don’t cuss, swear or use vulgar language. This in NOT a pub.”
Evidently Rod Sloane thinks Twitter should be all formal and buttoned up, spoken flawlessly and with a genteel English accent.
In that case, Tarzan, work on your grammar. This in not a pub, you say? I say you’re typing like it is, and it’s time we cut you off.
Update – and of course, after I pointed this out, Rod deleted his tweet. Nice try, but I got the image.
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Defiantly agree with this "Twitter is a loud, angry noise of people hollering all kinds of stuff. It’s a casual free-for-all with friends bantering about their day, their work, their trials and their triumphs. I love how open and honest it is. Polished marketing-style people come off as fake and plastic." over what Rands said today.
I'd rather people cussed at me that babbled this nonsense http://www.90dayswithdell.com/
I’m not sure mistyping ‘in’ for ‘is’ is the same as the language Rod is disagreeing with – such an error is not a cuss, a swear or vulgar – so it doesn’t undermine his point or make him a hypocrite, which is what you’re implying. Also, stating a wish that people would refrain from swearing is hardly saying that twitters should be flawless in genteel english accents. I think someone woke up on the wrong side of bed, Brent 😉
You’re really reaching here.
Yeah, isn’t this a bit vindictive and unnecessarily so? A syntax error does not equal vulgarity. Minor, unrelated point blown way out of proportion, man.
lol Brent I’m new to Twitter & ADORE your tutorial, I actually do agree with Rod Sloane a bit too – I don’t want to read anything too graphic on Twitter!!
some mild cussing & such I could live with, you have no idea what some people write on private chats or such & I really don’t want THAT on Twitter!! 😉
Oh, & have been partial to typos too, especially if too twitter-minded e-tech-exhausted – so I guess, hmm, grammar errors I can survive.. people inviting me to see their bodyparts in public, uhm – rather not! 🙂
You are so smug about this (I followed the link from your Twitter FAQ). Yes well done, you know where the PrintScreen button is . Did you not notice most of the comments disagree with you?
Tim – sure, of course. I welcome discussion about this sort of thing. If we all agreed on everything, it’d be a pretty boring place, eh?
His tweet was silly, and your response is a silly straw man. Did either of you learn from the exchange?
I think another question may be buried in this little episode: how can people tell the difference from an attempt to hide a tweet, and someone just changing their mind?
“Gotchas” are far easier now than before the internet. Gotchas don’t work well in conversations, however, and the internet-never-forgets factor also documents that people’s perspectives actually evolve. We often assume them to be static or consistent when replying to them, or pointing them out to others. As we increasingly see a “version history” of beliefs and perspectives, and see their evolution recorded in that history, will that change our conversational approach? Should that change our conversational approach? I think it should. We’ll see.
Why are these people taking this so seriously. Get off your high horses. I agree with you Brent, why should we refrain from cussing? F@$! him! 🙂
I would note that his use of the word “cuss” means that he isn’t English himself…
Brent
thanks for calling me out. Whatever that means.
I’m glad that you disagree with me. I simply don’t like people swearing in public places ie trains or football grounds. In private with mates or at the TV is fine. That’s all. When people swear a lot I an just turned off what they say, I judge them, probably unfairly and stop listening to them.
Now in my mind Twitter is a public place that’s all. I swear in my DMs but restrain myself in public. Is that just the English who do that.
Hope their arenut to muny teepos.
Rod
Interesting. The difference is that when you’re listening to someone else on Twitter, you’re going to someplace they’re at and criticizing the language they’re using. I wouldn’t come into, say, a party you were throwing, and say, “I simply don’t like people wearing black suits” or “I simply don’t like people who chew with their mouths open.” It’s your party – you can do whatever you’d like.
I’ll make an even better analogy. With regards to Twitter, it’s called “following” when you decide to receive tweets from someone. So criticizing their language on Twitter is like following them around on the street in real life and then yelling at them to stop cussing. That person would turn around and say, “Could you please go somewhere else and stop following me if you don’t like what I’m saying?”
And really it’s as simple as that. They aren’t sending anything to your inbox; you have chosen to listen to what they say, and if you don’t like it, simply click the “unfollow” button.
By the way, Rod, that typo has nothing to do with your point, nor does it add to or take away from what you were trying to say, so don’t worry about it.
Brent, I just arrived here from your FAQ page as well, and I agree with Tim: this example makes you sound smug (particularly the phrase “nice try”). Moreover, I see that the hash tag is “#twittiquette” — it sounds as if Rod was contributing here to an ongoing discussion about ettiquette on Twitter. And therefore his comment was appropriate to the “forum” in which he was partcipating at the time.
By the way, what do you mean, “it’s time we cut you off”? You’re going to stop following him because you find this tweet obnoxious?
Furthermore, I am a professional editor, but let’s face it: we ALL make typos on occasion! Holding up someone for ridicule because he typed “in” for “is” just seems silly.
Is this really the best example of a “capture-before-deleted” tweet that you can come up with?