Research from social media monitoring company Brandwatch has found that almost one in every 179 English words used on Twitter is spelt incorrectly, beating off Facebook, Google+ and online forums to become the top network for misspelled words.
The research, carried out over a three month period, found that women are more likely to elongate words, such as ‘soooo’ and use onomatopoeias such as ‘argh’, while men will shorten phrases, such as ‘gonna’ and ‘gotta’.
Brandwatch discovered the number one language deviation was a missing apostrophe, with the second being the use of acronyms and common web-speak phrases such as LOL.
Joel Windels, lead community manager at Brandwatch, said: “Whether through deliberate misuse or ignorance, it is clear that the nature of Twitter and its strict character limit continues to encourage a higher rate of unofficial English. But rather than bemoaning the loss of the language, shouldn’t we instead be recognising this for what it is – a natural evolution?
“Last year the Oxford English Dictionary added well over 1,000 new words and meanings, including web-speak words ‘lolz’ and ‘tweeps.’ Changes to language are nothing new, but this research highlights just how much of an influence social media is having on how we communicate.”
It was also found that around one in every 400 words used on Twitter now begins with a hashtag, and their use is slowly starting to extend into other platforms like Facebook and Google+.
Last week, code on the Facebook website seemed to suggest the site was gearing up to allow hashtags.