Word-by-Word: Federal Tweets

Nextgov.com – which covers the use of technology in the federal government — released an analysis of the Twitter pages of 10 different government entities, pinpointing the most popular words in 100 of each group’s Tweets between March 30 and April 10.

The groups’ interesting finds include:

• Government groups can get self-referential with their Twitter accounts. The Army uses “army” the most, while the Labor Department’s number one word was labor. Office of Personnel Management uses “opm.”

• “Socialism” is making a comeback in Congress, thanks to Republican lawmakers like Representative Paul Broun of Georgia and Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas.

• The National Science Foundation is becoming fluent in Twitterese (Twenglish?), shortening announcements to “anncmts”

• Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s two favorite words over a recent year-long span were “Republicans” and “Republican.” Meanwhile, “Democrats” came in at number 17.

• The ten most reticent members over the last 60 days, all Democrats, are credited with a combined 618 words. During that same span, the Congressional Record attributes 70,353 words to Senator Richard Durbin, Democrat of Illinois.