twitteration
noun (colloquial)

- a flutter, a twitter, a tizzy

- a state of anxiety or excitement; a state of agitation; perturbation

Merriam-Webster / Wiktionary

—
WORD ORIGIN

The word “twitter” originated in the late 14th century and is imitative of bird sounds. Compare this to the Old High German zwizziron, German zwitschern, Danish kvidre, Old Swedish kvitra.

The noun meaning “condition of tremulous excitement” is attested from the 1670s.

“Twitter”, the microblogging service with the 280-character limit, began in 2006.

—
AN ABUNDANCE OF BIRD-SOUNDS

If you’re interested in ornithology, Google has catalogued over 14,000 bird sounds using machine learning! and at “Birdsounds” Merriam-Webster, you can listen to 15 bird sounds and see the birds who make them:

- Buzz = Ruby-Throated Hummingbird

- Caw = Fish Crow

- Chirp = American Goldfinch

- Coo = Mourning Dove

- Croak = Common Raven

- Drum = Ruffed Grouse

- Hoot = Great-Horned Owl

- Laugh = Laughing Gull

- Peent = American Woodcock

- Screech = Red-Tailed Hawk

- Trill = Wood Thrush

- Tweet = Lazuli Bunting

- Warble = Louisiana Waterthrush

- Whinny = Pileated Woodpecker

- Whistle = Brown Creeper

—
CLEVER CROWS

In an article in The Guardian on 1st February this year, Daniel Boffey describes how a Swedish firm has trained crows to pick up cigarette butts from city streets.

New Caledonian crows, a member of the corvid family of birds, are as good at reasoning as a human seven-year-old, research has suggested, making them the smartest birds for the job.

The wild birds carry out the task as they receive a little food for every butt that they deposit in a cleverly designed machine designed by a startup in Södertälje, near Stockholm.

For more about clever crows, see Joshua Klein’s fascinating TED talk: “A thought experiment on the intelligence of crows”.

—
SMUGGLE OWAD into an English conversation, say something like:

“The moment I feel the onset of TWITTERATION, I take a deep breath and visualize the word ‘serenity’, it really calms me down.”

—
HERZLICHEN DANK to all readers helping me keep OWAD alive with single or monthly donations at:

https://donorbox.org/please-become-a-friend-of-owad-3

and,

Paul Smith, IBAN: DE75 7316 0000 0002 5477 40