The Associated Press (AP) has a story about Twitter users transmitting short cooking or baking recipes in 140 characters or less. (Check out the article for specific Twitterers that do this.)
Why 140 characters? This is the hard limit Twitter sets on tweets so that it works in the confines of the SMS/text-messaging character limitations.
So, when sending these recipes to followers, a Twitter user often has to encode the message in shorthand that can sometimes resemble a chemical equation. The application is practical, because typically the person sending the recipes has standardized on their shorthand, and may provide a rubric on their website.
“A recent tweet for salsa from Bayless, a James Beard award-winning chef, reads in full: Simple Guajillo Salsa:toast 2 clnd guajillos n med-ht oil 4 20-30 sec.Blend w 4 rstd tomatillos,3 rstd garlic,1/2c H20. Salt.”
One of my biggest pet peeves on Twitter is people who text (SMS) message their tweets and use shorthand because they’re lazy but still have plenty of characters. It’s especially annoying when I look and see they posted from the web site or an iPhone or Blackberry app, meaning they had access to a full keyboard but still use that annoying text-speak that requires decoding. Terms like “LOL” or “BRB” are generally speaking less annoying, but that’s a talk for another time.
Are we pushing the limits of the 140 character Twitter message too far? Will our future communications become completely incomprehensible? Will the most in-the-know communicators of our time be the teenage girl with an unlimited text-messaging plan? Is the English language doomed? I don’t think so. I think we can continue to use full sentences and the best grammar that we can to convey what we need to say. If it can’t be said in 140 characters, write it up and link to it in a Tweet. It’s that simple.
Know any interesting people pushing the limits of 140 characters on Twitter? Link to them in the comments.