Writing Right with Dmitri: Pith and Vinegar
Created | Updated Feb 12, 2017
Writing Right with Dmitri: Pith and Vinegar
Do you tweet? Neither do I, much. My account only has a few tweets so far. But I'm retweeting a bit (mostly h2g2 Stuff), and I read a lot of tweets. From the lighter people. You know: Rogue NASA, Rogue EPA, the National Park Service, etc. Oh, and h2g2 Guide Editors, of course.
That's not what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about how useful that 140-character limit could be. Not for a politician, though lord knows, it keeps them from talking as long as Theodore Roosevelt. Somebody shot Theodore Roosevelt once. In public. The bullet didn't do much damage, though. It got lodged in the 50-page speech he had in his pocket. Yes, he went on and read the speech before calling a doctor.
Anyway. I just saw this breathtaking picture from NASA on my twitter feed:
It was a retweet by Rogue NASA. The original tweeter had captioned the photo, 'Star birth with a chance of winds?' Nice.
This made me think. Pithiness – as opposed to 'sound bites' – is fast becoming a lost art. Maybe we could use Twitter for practice? Just use your Twitter box without sending1 . The Twitter box counts the characters for you. You can do that with your Word program, too, though it's a bit more work.
So let's have a go. Plot of Bleak House:
Chancery wards find love, challenge, revelations in this taut courtroom drama. Who says civil law is boring? #dickensrocks
How about Man in the High Castle?
Life in parallel universes really sux. You can't even go back in time and kill Hitler. #tomorrowbelongstome #ohnoitdoesnt #pkdick
Okay, try your hands. I know you can do better than that.
As Elektra always used to sing:
When my sugar walks down the street, all the little birdies go 'tweet, tweet, tweet…' Dumb birdies!
She would've had room to add '#ornithology'.
Time Travel Game
What if great moments in history had Twitter? Again, ignoring the genuine article, pretend to be a set of historically accurate Twitter users. Tweet the exciting story.
Marie Antoinette @stillyourqueen
When I said, Let Them Eat Cake, I wasn't being politically incorrect. I meant, why not try brioche? It's a choice. Love.
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