When using Twitter, you have to balance the competing interests of conveying information in a small space and keeping your message readable. Some efficient abbreviations and intentional, character-saving misspellings are good, but too much and your tweet becomes undecipherable gibberish. Iowa senator Chuck Grassley veered a little too far into gibberish territory yesterday with a tweet about … something … that he enjoyed … somewhere.
Apparently some of Grassley’s 26,589 followers gave him a hard time for his excessive use of Twitter shorthand, because today he tweeted this curmudgeonly message:
Okay, so it’s kind of funny that Grassley misstated the number of characters allotted in each tweet (140, not 120) while scolding people for not understanding Twitter. And in fact, the Twitterverse is having a good laugh about it right now. But you have to remember that we’re talking about a 77-year-old senator here. Ask your 77-year-old grandfather how many characters are in a tweet, and he’ll probably accuse you of being on the hash marijuana and try to cane you. The fact that someone born during the Great Depression has more than a rudimentary understanding of Twitter is pretty impressive. So quit being smartasses, you damn kids.
