But it wasn't supposed to be like this. I have recently spent some time in London and I have just returned from a long week-end in Dublin. Both places have been the themes of many a Tweet lately. But very little proper writing. So should I feel indebted to Twitter? Perhaps. If it wasn't for this useful shorthand I would have shaken off the despairing laziness I am prone to. But perhaps micro blogging with Twitter gives me permission to indulge in that laziness. Perhaps I would have written something of a decent length, developed a decent analysis of something before now. Perhaps Twitter is a bad thing. Being idle normally provides me with a wake up jolt after an indeterminate amount of time and I know I have to do something. But if I labour under the misconception that I'm not being idle because I am Tweeting - and after all don't those Tweets require a writer's skill? (This is true up to a point if you value the impact of a paragraph over all other writing). And if I am crafting clever, profound, observational asides, aren't I keeping the creative pot boiling and well stirred and defeating the tempting evils of indolence? Again, perhaps. Perhaps Tweeting is good because doing nothing is so very bad.
But surely Tweeting shouldn't be used as an excuse for not writing, rather, it should act as a spring board for more in-depth writing - even if the paragraphs found within the longer form aren't as cleverly succinct or well constructed in the end, as each independently considered Tweet. How could they ever be, you would never get to the end of anything longer. I have known tweets to have a birth so painful, so stubborn, so impossible - they've been sent back up the chute and they die of asphyxiation never to re-emerge to blankly blink against the glare of expectation.
But surely Tweeting shouldn't be used as an excuse for not writing, rather, it should act as a spring board for more in-depth writing - even if the paragraphs found within the longer form aren't as cleverly succinct or well constructed in the end, as each independently considered Tweet. How could they ever be, you would never get to the end of anything longer. I have known tweets to have a birth so painful, so stubborn, so impossible - they've been sent back up the chute and they die of asphyxiation never to re-emerge to blankly blink against the glare of expectation.
Maybe to all that. But this blog is called 'My Dream Lexicon' - and quite a few of my Tweets have been formed when I'm not feeling humorous or profound or cruel or self-satisfied but are just efforts at language use practice. No real surprise there for someone who owns a blog, just one of many but still, who owns a blog that suggests a passion for language and words. Here are a few of the Tweets that concentrated on words during the last few weeks - where better to reiterate them than on my wordy blog:
Rasorial: Given to scratching around for food like poultry. As I writer I can see that it would be useful figuratively if not literally. My Tweet read: 'Given to scratching the ground for food, as poultry. I shall count the days until I use this word (wait for it) figuratively.' Not a great Tweet - the more interesting ones (not necessarily the word themed ones) are the ones that have been shoe-horned into 140 characters but still work. In some cases, I like to think, rather well.
Ramfeezled: 'A priceless gift from OED means worn out, exhausted, confused, muddled. Not sure of its derivation but I welcome it to my life.' What I meant there I suppose was that I recognised it as being a useful word and term and as a writer words are very much the building blocks of the trade - and lively conversation is probably the most underrated skill in existence. A word like ramfeezled can only make you into both a more interesting writer (unless or until it catches on to such an extent it becomes tired and cliched) and a surprisingly good, perhaps funny wise engaging conversationalist.That's the theory anyway. Look at its construction it's got everything. Recognizing this is probably one of the skills you need as a word smith. There are legions of scrabble experts out there who know twice the words of average mortals who look as if they could send the guests at a go-naked swingers only New Years Party in a free pub into a haze of mind numbed boredom. It's not just knowing the words, it's knowing how to use them. But you do still have to know them - but that's just part of it.
Sehnsucht: The longing for something. The inconsolable longing in the human heart for something. Part of the Germans have a word for it season. The thinking behind this notion of the German language is that though the language is smaller, they have prioritized in areas where we haven't in the validating the coinages within the German speaking world. Here they have acknowledged that a condition existed for which a word should be be properly ascribed. Part of the German psyche must have contributed to the need for a word to describe succinctly a feeling that is known within the human emotional repertoire. English people will experience the same feelings - but presumably will have to describe them as best they can withing the limits of their own language dropping in words like heart-break or unexpected longing, or crafting intricately involved sentences to make the point incrementally. My heart feels empty, something is missing. I don't know what it is but the absence of something is making me feel bereft, down, sad. If I could just identify what it is I could begin to rectify this absence this hole from which something must fill. And so on. A German speaker theoretically would stop you in mid flow and say Ja ja du bist sehnsucht which would bring elucidation (if not to German speakers) and a little comfort to the sufferer.
Rasorial: Given to scratching around for food like poultry. As I writer I can see that it would be useful figuratively if not literally. My Tweet read: 'Given to scratching the ground for food, as poultry. I shall count the days until I use this word (wait for it) figuratively.' Not a great Tweet - the more interesting ones (not necessarily the word themed ones) are the ones that have been shoe-horned into 140 characters but still work. In some cases, I like to think, rather well.
Ramfeezled: 'A priceless gift from OED means worn out, exhausted, confused, muddled. Not sure of its derivation but I welcome it to my life.' What I meant there I suppose was that I recognised it as being a useful word and term and as a writer words are very much the building blocks of the trade - and lively conversation is probably the most underrated skill in existence. A word like ramfeezled can only make you into both a more interesting writer (unless or until it catches on to such an extent it becomes tired and cliched) and a surprisingly good, perhaps funny wise engaging conversationalist.That's the theory anyway. Look at its construction it's got everything. Recognizing this is probably one of the skills you need as a word smith. There are legions of scrabble experts out there who know twice the words of average mortals who look as if they could send the guests at a go-naked swingers only New Years Party in a free pub into a haze of mind numbed boredom. It's not just knowing the words, it's knowing how to use them. But you do still have to know them - but that's just part of it.
Sehnsucht: The longing for something. The inconsolable longing in the human heart for something. Part of the Germans have a word for it season. The thinking behind this notion of the German language is that though the language is smaller, they have prioritized in areas where we haven't in the validating the coinages within the German speaking world. Here they have acknowledged that a condition existed for which a word should be be properly ascribed. Part of the German psyche must have contributed to the need for a word to describe succinctly a feeling that is known within the human emotional repertoire. English people will experience the same feelings - but presumably will have to describe them as best they can withing the limits of their own language dropping in words like heart-break or unexpected longing, or crafting intricately involved sentences to make the point incrementally. My heart feels empty, something is missing. I don't know what it is but the absence of something is making me feel bereft, down, sad. If I could just identify what it is I could begin to rectify this absence this hole from which something must fill. And so on. A German speaker theoretically would stop you in mid flow and say Ja ja du bist sehnsucht which would bring elucidation (if not to German speakers) and a little comfort to the sufferer.
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