Elon Musk is striving to rename Twitter to ‘X’, but the term ‘tweet’, synonymous with posting on the platform, appears to be here to stay. Despite Musk’s ambitions, the word ‘tweet’ is still ubiquitous on the site, from the button to post a message to the option to repost.
Twitter has achieved something remarkable in its short existence. It has become a verb and ingrained itself into the lexicon of the world. Albeit Musk is the owner of the newly christened ‘X’ and one of the world’s wealthiest individuals, language evolution is not typically a top-down process.
Twitter has grown from its initial name, ‘twttr’, launched in 2006, to a globally recognized platform. It was only in 2011 that the term ‘tweet’ was added to the Oxford English Dictionary, and it has since become part of everyday language.
As legal professionals with an interest in intellectual property law, we are observing Musk’s attempts to reshape Twitter’s identity with keen interest. It raises questions about the power of branding, the importance of protecting trademarks, and the intricate relationship between language and technology.
As much as Musk might want to transform Twitter into ‘X’, it seems that the enduring power of the term ‘tweet’ and the platform’s embeddedness in our culture might present a formidable challenge. This saga offers a fascinating case study in the tensions between corporate branding strategies and the organic evolution of language.