Some acronyms in Twitter are well-known known and widely employed and they have easily transcended the boundaries of the English language and are commonly used by non-Anglophone speakers.
RT is one of these.
The major advantage, in Italian, is that the two-letter word “RT” perfectly fits the extended form either in its original shape – Eng. retweet, to retweet – or in translation, all variants – It. ritweet/retweet/ritwit/retwit and ritwittare/retwittare.
It refers directly to its sense; that is to say, it’s transparent.
Also FF took soon good root in Italian, even if the correspondence between the initials in the English word “Friday” and the Italian “Venerdì” is lacking.
It’s luck is in the power of formulas and rituals (the well-known “follow Friday” tradition).
That is not the case for HT.
As for its French equivalent “chapeau”, HT stands in English for HAT TIP, a way to acknowledge the source of the content we are passing around.
At least in Italian, HT may be rarely found in tweets, especially in its real original meaning.
If ever occurring in Italian tweets, HT is often misused and possibly intended to be an acronym for “hashtag”, a more common word indeed, which makes the short form meaningful and transparent.
Whatever that means, HT is scritture brevi.
Francesca Chiusaroli, Scritture Brevi
22 agosto 2013
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