A study of punctuation in 50 Cent's tweets.

The First Ever 50 Cent Twitter Statistics Analysis Report.

A recent PoorlyWrritenNews report on lexical trends in hip-hop star 50 cent, voiced through the medium of his twitter page, has revealed some startling findings.

THE FINDINGS:

The report studied an 18 day period, all the tweets of the month of November so far, from the first tweet of the month (2 Nov) to the time of writing (20 Nov).

The total amount of tweets amounted by 50 cent during this time was 149.

Out of these 149 tweets, just 5 demonstrated correct use of punctuation (around 3%).


When adjusted to exclude tweets with expletives and spelling mistakes the figure dropped to less than 2%.

The writer used the phrase “Lol” at the end of a sentence a total of 27 times (18.1%).

Including use of the phrase “Hahahahaha”, which was used an additional 2 times to demonstrate a similar meaning, the figure rises to 19.4%.

ADDITIONAL INFO:

Some of the correctly punctuated tweets are incorrect for reasons other than punctuation:

Out of the correctly punctuated tweets, the two that were completely sound are included directly below (only one is more than 10 words long however) :

“this is going to be a great year for me.”

Perfect, flawless; a sequence of words that make complete sense in terms of grammar and punctuation. Capital T wouldn't go astray, blah blah blah.

“I think the @Lloydbanks H.F.M.2 might just be the best album coming out this tueday, I'm checking it out now.“

This is a perfectly conjugated sentence. Although the “@Lloydbanks” would not read well to those unaccustomed with twitter.com, this tweet can still be recognised for no flaws in punctuation. However, from a spelling perspective, “tueday” would not suffice in describing the second day of the week.

Below are the other three questionable, almost correctly punctuated sentences that have been counted among the 3% correctness figure:

“Another pic. F*ck around if you want to!... “

(Included is an image of the music artist wearing an all white face veil, only his eyes are visible. He is wearing a white tank top and the location has graffiti on the walls, it is possibly a building in a vacant building)

In this instance the rapper has created an almost fully correct sentence! Even when we disregard the abbreviation of the full term “picture”, the use of an expletive in the middle and the inexplicable use of ellipsis at the end of the sentence is quite questionable.

“How much money is to much ? That's a good question. Lol”

(picture of a large stack of US dollars included)

The space after the question mark is not technically correct. Also, even though “Lol” will be familiar with internet users it not a recognised complete sentence by any right, even with this ignored, it could still do with a full stop to indicate finality in the sentence.

“Ok look I hurt my neck having rough sex. I haven't been my self lately. Lol”

(Included is a link to an image of Mr. Jackson with a neck brace, leaning on the hood of a BMW saloon in a car park)

This sentence reads quite well, but could do with a comma after “look”, preceding the statement “I hurt my neck having rough sex.”.

There were several instances in which the rapper almost correctly conjugated a sentence, but they still fell short of the mark of being counted as correctly punctuated, for various reasons, as the examples will show:

“whos is he talking about?”

Posted on the 11 Nov, the artist has almost managed a fully correct sentence in the 5 words he has used. There is a bit of a spelling and/or grammatical error in formulating a question in this case. It is actually unclear whether the writer is demonstrating possession (in which case the correct form would be “whose”), or whether the writer is demanding to know the subject the other (“who's”). In the case of the former there would still be a pressing grammatical error: a correct conjugation of the verb 'to be' would still be required, i.e. “who is he...”

“Ok were is the hate I'm ready let's go suckers“

Two commas would make this sentence more manageable. Mr. Jackson's persistence in asking a question to the online community and following it up with an invitation to fight him cannot achieve the desired effect without some sort of punctuation.

“i want every body who reads this to want more out of life.more joy,more love, more success.thats what H.F.M2 is about LLOYD BANK$.”

hugely impressed with the masterful break up of the phrases “more joy, more love...”. All that's lacking is that apostrophe to correct the “thats”. Spaces in between sentences are advisable also.

“I'm down today feeling blue. Lol “

(Included picture: the rap star seated on a royal blue coloured Rolls Royce Phantom)

I do of course acknowledge the intricacy of the pun, of which the sentence is centred upon. However, a comma is required between 'today' and 'feeling'.

“I'm getting better at what I do. say my name it will provoke emotions. Weather love or hate I matter. Lol”

In the above example a comma is desperately required to slow the flow of words in the second sentence, not to mention a capital letter for the start of it. A comma is needed in the third sentence, in addition to correct application of the word 'whether'.

“you know you ladies gonna have to share me .im enough to go around just need a 10 min break in a redbull .lol “

“I am” becomes “I'm”, you know this fiddy.

Also, “break in a redbull”.. I know what you mean but, what?

“ok i just watched a porn clip and now im confused.dont know if i want a good girl or a whore.i got it i want a good girl whore.lol “

Laughing out loud again. Commas required: after “ok”, after “got it”. An apostrophe is needed to correct “dont”, also, “don't know if...” should not begin a sentence.

A follow up report will be conducted next week.

Facebook can give you asthma

A treat was truly in store for readers of Dublin's Metro Herald yesterday (19 Nov), the top of page 11 ran the headline "Warning: Facebook could trigger an asthma attack".
Very informative piece altogether; the article repeated the title almost word for word as the first sentence - stirring repetitive rhetoric, there were additionally plenty of solid irrational claims from arcane sources - "Now doctors fear social networking websties such a facebook may be a 'new source of psychological distress"...... "doctors"... really.
There was some great second-hand anecdotal evidence in the piece also - it was reported a teenage male who was dumped by his girlfriend created a new profile under a pseudonym after being de-friended by his ex, who accepted his new persona. The dump-ee then noticed she was "friending" new men. Yes, the paper had friending in inverted commas, and no, I cannot actually figure out whether 'friending' is but an obscure euphemism for something or a an attempt to denigrate the meaning of the verb in order to enforce a view. My gut tells me it may be latter.
Interestingly there is no description in the slightest of any asthma attack in the article (why would you need the text to correspond to the headline anyway!?), though it does mention the 18 year-old "used an inhaler to keep his asthma under control". The Metro Herald could be onto something here, what if this "inhaler" device was readily available to all those suffering from asthma?.... wow.

Indeed, the metro herald seems to have unearthed something truly unique in the field of human psychology. "Doctors" to quote the source, are said to be baffled by this new phenomenon, and have admitted that previous attempts to explore this arena, including the age-old concept known as 'unrequited love' are obviously unrelated, obsolete and pure nonsense. Trustees of the works of Dante, Dickens, Shakespeare and Hugo are expected to issue apologies on behalf of the authors, for prohibited, tactless and extensive usurping of the Metro Herald's unique concept of love related stress in their works.

Psychologists and literary critics alike eagerly await further developments into the Metro Herald's study of this unexplored realm of the human condition.