Today, I experienced one of those rare moments when "Web 2.0" or whatever the fuck we're calling it this hour just dazzled the pants right off of me. Of course a lack of pants facilitated this, but still.
If there's one thing writing for Sepia Mutiny has made me, it's PARANOID. I'm always worried about using the wrong term, misspelling words or otherwise getting something wrong, because I'll hear about it within minutes from a reader or three who are just tickled to have proof that I'm an idiot. So I try and be careful, to the extant I can be.
But, I don't speak Hindi. I know a little bit of Punjabi, but not that much.
I didn't know how to say "elephant". This was important, because I wanted to gank a Tupac song's title for my post, but I needed it to rhyme. I thought the word might be "hathi". I google defined it, and was given a wiki link, nothing more. Hmmm. On wiki, I saw tentative confirmation, but who trusts just wiki?? So I started to surf and the more I did, the more confusing it became. So, I tweeted something about how at moments like this, I wished my Dad were still around and could anyone confirm that "hathi" means "elephant"?
In minutes, I had over a dozen tweets, with alternate spellings, additional resources, double confirmations...everything. I went from unsure to certain, in no time flat, because of the power of my hive. :) It was mind-blowing to hit the "replies" tab, and see it refresh every few seconds with another response. My followers are a phenomenal bunch. And today, they helped me write the post I needed to, with the title I wanted, all along. :) Behold, the power of Twitter, indeed.
It's spelt "haAthi" ,no? No pun intended.
Posted by: airborne | 2010.02.04 at 07:49 PM