Automated Twitter account @everyword has finally completed its task of tweeting out every single word in the dictionary to its many followers. After seven years, the account tweeted the word 'zymurgy' - which means: the study of fermentation in the context of brewing and distilling - last night, and so completed its job of tweeting to the world all of the words in its database.
Created by Adam Parrish as a novelty idea, the account is powered by an automated bot that works through a preset dictionary of words, posting them one by one to the account. The idea has attracted over 100,000 followers and has resulted in the posting of over 109,000 tweets.
The words posted by the bot often spark conversations on Twitter and particularly interesting words are frequently retweeted and favorited by users. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most popular word posted is 'sex' which attracted over 2,000 retweets and over 1,000 favorites. 'Weed' follows in a close second place.
Parrish, a programmer and poet, created the system in 2007 when Twitter had only just been formed and was facing criticism. Many believed it wasn't particularly useful due to its 140-character limit that purposefully prevented detailed, developed conversation.
Parrish decided to test this by making an automated system posting single words from a lexicon of words he stumbled across online. He told the Guardian that he can no longer remember where he found the word list but it definitely isn't the Oxford English Dictionary, thought of as the standard for the English language. He thought that the words, taken completely out of context, could prove to be catalysts for diverse, varying conversations and he proved to be absolutely right, as the account's 100,000 followers show.
Unfortunately, as the system approached the posting of the final word a number of issues were encountered. Due to bugs in the software and inaccuracies in the source material, several extra words were tweeted after 'zymurgy' - the correct last word in the dictionary.
Parrish is reportedly unsure of what to do with the account now that all of the words have been posted but he wrote on his Decontextualize blog that after a short pause he may restart the service from the beginning as "Everyword Season 2."
The new Everyword will feature less bugs and interruptions in posting as well as a more complete, accurate source word list, says Parrish. Perhaps the end of one of Twitter's most popular automated accounts may not be quite the end just yet.
Source: Decontextualize via Digital Trends
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