I am frequently asked about Twitter, how to Tweet, and how on earth I can possibly say anything relevant and meaningful in only 140 characters. I was raised by a mother who had a large vocabulary and spoke at least four languages fluently and was proficient in three others. She taught me a lot about the power of words and how to use them well and with brevity.
More recently, I’ve lived in the South for over two decades and I have to say that the abbreviations I’ve picked up and the colloquialisms I’ve learned make tweeting easier. I’m going to share some of my favorites here and betting you’ll find yourself using them to empower your tweets (and who knows maybe your regular conversation.)
Y’all (You All)
This just makes sense as a contraction. It is friendly, welcoming and works for men, women and a mixed crowd. It saves just a character and invites and engages.
Yonto/Yon2 (Do You Want to)
Okay, now I know this is a reach but trust me on Twitter most folks eliminate just vowels for abbreviations and Southern colloquialisms allow you to negate consonants too. While it is entirely grammatically incorrect, it is tweet worthy and most will understand what you mean.
Fixin To/Fixin2 (Going To)
Normally you’d ditch an extra set of characters like this entirely on Twitter, but including this adds a real flavor and relaxed feeling to your tweet.
Yonder (Over There)
Another colorful contraction of unnecessary letters that gets the point across succinctly.
Arn (Iron); Tar (Tire); Draw (Drawer); Hart (Heart)
Occasionally these can prove a bit confusing to non-Southerners but are certainly effective in eliminating a clearly useless extra and usually silent character. Baffle your non-Southern friends with these and others you can apply the same grammatical illogicalness to.
Haa (Hello, How are you) and Baa (Good Bye)
Clearly these are big character savers, and add a distinct drawl to your tweets. The only danger is that they may be construed as either foreign words or animal sounds (a crow and a sheep respectively.)
Mornin/Naat (Good Morning/Good Night)
More great character saving abbreviations that my mother would have cringed at. I can still here her voice on the phone when I’d drop my g’s (I was born and raised on the West Coast and we did a lot of “runnin, comin, goin, doin.” )
For more tips on mastering Twitter, knowing what to Tweet and growing your Twitter flock, head on over to www.superchargesuccess.com. Oh and if you’ve got great abbreviated words you want to share, please leave them in the comments with what they mean and an example of how to use them.
