The term I chose was Twitter. The earliest journalistic use of the word "twitter" was in the New York Times in 1853 in an article called Summer Rambles: Indian Neck and Therearouts, Dog days. In this context, the word twitter was used as a noun meaning a state of tremulous excitement. Other articles referred to "twitter" as a sound.
In the scholarly article databases, I found twitter used more in reference to birds in Gleanings of Natural History in Ireland. No. V, which was written in 1833. Most of the uses in the scholarly article databases referred to "twitter" as a sound.
This is very different than the way we use the word "Twitter" today. We know twitter as a social media site and phone application with the blue bird symbol in which we can post anything our hearts desire wherever we are, as long as it is less than 140 characters. We "tweet" on the twitter sphere. This a completely new and modern meaning to the word. We do not use the word to describe a state of tremulous excitement or a sound. Innovation and our modern society has changed the meaning of the word "Twitter" drastically.
It is definitely weird to think that even some of the more common words we use today could completely change meaning like the word twitter has. Good job researching this.
ReplyDelete