Part of the reason I like Twitter is the way it forces you to be precise. This is the same reason many others hate it. However, I find it can be a great way to examine a few things about the information density of languages.
English is less dense than say Chinese. What does that mean?
A Chinese sentence can have more information in it than an English sentence of equal sentence.
For example,
“I will go to the library to study.”
“我要去图书馆学习”
I’m getting a bit off track a bit, but just take it to mean that while in English it can be difficult to “shorten” our writing, in Chinese it's harder to “expand” writing.
However, this is more about to address the use of Twitter for this blog. I like the idea of “word a day” or something like that. So, I think I will try to post a word a day with practical examples over here. Using twitter as an exercise in precision and then expanding upon it in more of an exposition (or maybe vice versa).
The other reason for mentioning Twitter is to examine it a little more later. When I have the time, I want to take a look at how a sample of people use Twitter and the methods they use to “shorten” their speech. Then, I’d like to see how it corresponds to actual speaking in everyday life! More on that later though, for now, I need to start thinking of words everyday!
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