Issue Date: October 4, 2009

To tweet or not to tweet!

Imagine if Twitter was around 100s of years ago.

Whatever you think of Twitter, there's no question that it is the social networking app of the year.

In Iran, Twitter has been used to circumvent government censors and let the world know about presidential election protests. In America, we use it to find out what Ashton Kutcher had for a snack.

But is Twitter advancing us or making us stupid by breaking everything into abbreviations and emoticons? Isn't there value in communicating with the full depth of the English language?

To find out, we translated a few famous texts into "tweets."

The Declaration of Independence: "We gots life, liberty, happiness now! Peace out, King George!"

Shakespeare's "Macbeth": "Macbeth killed the king! :( But he got his. Ambition will consume U!!"

King's "I Have a Dream" speech: "U R equal. I am equal. We R all equal. My dream is we have no more h8."

"Moby-Dick": "Oh, snap! This gr8 white whale won't die! Cap'n Ahab is trippin! These are the scars of obsession."

Dr. Spock's "Baby and Child Care": "Feed ur baby. Clean ur baby. Lv ur baby. Why is th@ so hard?"

-- Bryan Tucker