Why would they call an updated post on Twitter a "Tweet" instead of a "Twit?" I thought it was weird because neither the Twitter and Tweets' spellings are identical?
Native speaker’s answer
Rebecca
That's a good question! So, both "twitter" and "tweet" are related to birds, which is the logo of Twitter. A "twitter" is when a bird makes a repetitive light sound, and when a bird "tweets," it's a singular chirp or sound from a bird. So with this in mind, a bunch of single "tweets" make up "Twitter." Also, a "tweet" and "Twitter" itself are two different concepts. "Twitter" is the social media platform, whereas a "tweet" is just a short post. A "twit" actually means a silly or foolish person, so it wouldn't be appropriate to use! But with the concept of birds, the platform lingo and branding makes sense. Ex: How many tweets do you tweet in a single day? => tweet = post Ex: I can hear the twittering of birds outside. Ex: Some birds tweet very loudly. Ex: Have you seen the recent tweets on Twitter?
