Twitterpated

Posted by chuck maxwell on December 5th, 2008 filed in Chuck's blog

Funny how words get redefined or misplaced over the course of years isn’t it? Gay, straight, bad, far out, cool, man, text, and a plethora of suggestive slang I won’t mention. Sometimes you can figure out the new meaning of the word if you know something about the original meaning. Now we have “twitter.” Folks who use or do or practice this find such joy in knowing and making known the small goings on in each other’s life. Kind of cute really. They enjoy knowing that Joe left the house and went to pay the utility bill. Or that Mary is going to sleep late. How I have made it so far without twitter I don’t know. (I understand there’s also a similar practice on facebook. But who cares about that. Facebook is on its way out right?)

While twitter may be a new techno phenomena, it’s not really a new word. Just a twitster on some old ones. I think it is partly derived from the noun twit. But it’s origin even goes back further than twit does. In 1942, Disney released the box office hit Bambi. In that movie, which I am told only has 100 words in the entire script, a word is used to describe those God designed urges the birds experience in springtime; “twitterpated.” There are other ways as well to describe birds and other creatures during that season of their life. That’s for another blog. But it’s a fitting word for those who have gotten so excited with this new way of communicating. Now you know. And its just a matter of time before twitterpation is in Webster’s. There’ll be support groups for twitolics. And we’ll have a new disease to be treated by twitologists. Congratulations twitterpatrons! You’re part of coining a new movement.