Social:Blip (internet)

A blip is an onomatopoeic English noun used to refer a small dot registered on electronic equipment, such as radar or oscilloscope screens, or an electronically generated single-pitch sound. Alternatively, it has now entered usage as a short status update posted to any social networking website on the Internet.

History

The word blip was first used in 1880 by American writer Joel Chandler Harris in his Brer Rabbit stories to indicate a physical blow or punch: "Brer Rabbit draw back wid his fis’, he did, en blip he tuck ‘er side er de head." This definition was adopted by several other American authors including Mark Twain and Dashiell Hammett. Twain wrote in his Tom Sawyer Abroad: "We took him a blip in the back and knocked him off." Hammett's usage, in The Maltese Falcon, expanded the definition to include murder: "You could have blipped them both."

However, for reasons unknown, this older definition was discarded on the advent of modern radar systems in favor of one which remains in use today: a point of light on a radar screen to locate a searched for object. The definition received a further update when, in 2009, two companies independently began using the word in association with the Internet. Kedoodle co-founder Sarah J. Crews coined the term as “any 140 character status update on a social networking platform such as Facebook or Twitter.” In a similar vein, Google Wave uses the term to refer to a single message posted in a thread.

References

Safire, William. The right word in the right place at the right time. Simon and Schuster, 2004. 24-25. Print.