NY TIMES WRITERS AREN'T ALLOWED TO USE 'TWEET'

Yup, the 'ol Grey Lady has a little problemo with using "tweet" in a news story.

I work as an online editor at a daily paper and we use 'tweet' all the time. I guess we're not as

sophisticated as America's 'Newspaper of Record' whose staff is forbidden to utilize the word "tweet" as both a noun ("a Twitter message") and a verb ("to send a Twitter message").

In a memo leaked to The Awl, New York Times Standards Editor Phil Corbett advises not to use the word, writing "outside of ornithological

contexts, "tweet" has not yet achieved the status of standard English. And standard English is what we should use in news articles."

So what are his suggestions for an alternative? He says, "deft, English alternatives: use Twitter, post to or on Twitter, write on Twitter, a Twitter message, a Twitter update."

The buzz is that newsroom scribes replied to his memo defending the use of the word "tweet."

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