The "at" Is Silent

Leif has brought up a mechanical concern with Twitter style that has so far gone unresolved by anyone in any sort of position of power. I call that a power vacuum, and I'm here to step in.

Leif wrings his hands:

My head almost went all Scanners while typing the “a @gowalla.” Strunk and White, where are you when I need you the most? Is it “a @” or “an @”?

The correct way to do this is to keep the "@" silent, and I'll tell you why.

Let's take Erica Mayer's tweet

My buddy @jonberrydesign is at the #Olympics working in graphic design! You should follow him, he's a swell dude <3

Do you pronounce this, "My buddy at-jonberrydesign is at the hash-Olympics"*? I don't. When I sign up for Twitter, I pick user names that don't involve "at" being said at the start. My Twitter handle is Punsultant. I am not the at-Punsultant; nor am I running the at-MNBeardOff.

The "@" indicates that the string of letters immediately following it is a user name. Similar symbols include the apostrophe, which indicates possession or acts as a replacement for letters within a word; the period, which indicates the end of a sentence; and the quotation mark, which indicates speech from someone other than the narrator. These symbols are called punctuation and are not pronounced.**

My point is this: "@" is punctuation that Twitter has invented. Find me a reputable style guide that says punctuation should be pronounced and I will start saying "at-username." Until then, the "at" should remain silent.


*I would like to compete in the hash Olympics.

**Sometimes quotation marks are pronounced when reading aloud. I don't care.

Winter 1, Winter 2

Do you ever notice how winter before New Year's looks different from winter after New Year's? True, the Christmas decorations are taken down sometime in January, but that's not exactly it. I could never really place it until a few days ago, when I saw a man in a stylish coat and scarf.

After the first of the year, we stop giving a shit about how we dress, because it's just too damn cold.

Before the first of the year, people are still excited about wearing their nice pea coat, a stylish scarf, and some sort of jaunty hat. But once January gets at full tilt, and all the way until March, it's like a race to see who can wear the most layers. This results in lumpy, waddling, sad-looking Minnesotans.

I don't think the fact that spring is just out of reach helps things much, either.