Silly Twitter word
#Trending #TrendingTopics #Milkanoël This morning, when I opened up my Twitter account, I discovered a reference to a certain US multinational famous for its milk and cocoa products, Milka . The Twitter message I read indicated that a certain Milka hashtag was "trending”. I imagined for a moment that the proverbial cow was, at last, coming home. I wondered immediately why this item of world-shaking news about a dullish Trumpland company had hit the Twitter headlines. The answer was elementary. The purple cow was being fed on a variety of green grass called dollars. But what interested me far more than the state of the Milka cow was the linguistic absurdity of the the verb “trending”. Popular among French folk who like to give the impression that they understand English, this silly verb appears to have originated on the other side of the Atlantic. Click the text block to enlarge it slightly Once upon a time, even innocent kids in English-speaking communities would have known that ...