Retweet Glossary, Syntax and Punctuation

“RT” and “via” are the most common abbreviations used, and you can provide retweet attribution to the curator at the beginning or ending of a tweet with a wide variety of punctuation. A good reference to familiarize yourself with is Why Misunderstanding Retweets Can Get You Suspended, which includes information on how and why to credit multiple usernames.

There is no one “right” way to format a retweet (but if you remove the username of the account you found the tweet from you’re doing it wrong). Virtually every Twitter application provides a one-click retweet function, and there are many different standards for how the resulting tweet looks. Some allow you to edit the retweet before sending it, and some (such as the native function at Twitter.com) do not allow editing.

1. Glossary of common abbreviations

1. RT Short for “Retweet.” This is even sometimes spelled out instead of abbreviated.
2. via Similar to HT or MRT (below), via has lately simply become more of a catchall, often seen simply as an alternative to using “RT.” But ideally, it indicates a modified tweet. See “Why do some people use “via” instead of “RT?” for retweeting?“
3. HT “Hat tip” This is a way of thanking the person who brought something to your attention. It’s sometimes used interchangeably with MRT (see #3 below). More exactly, according to the Blogossary, “Hat tip [HT] is an acknowledgement to someone (or a website) for bringing something to [your] attention.” If you’re not sharing a link or quote from someone, sometimes it’s better not to reference anyone at all lest you seem to be putting words in their mouth. Although it’s source comes from the phrase “Hat Tip” it has since also been thought to represent “Heard Through” (HT to @AndrewSpong for pointing this out).
4. MRT or MT Short for “Modified (re)tweet,” this usually indicates that you’ve edited the retweet a little, otherwise only a very small amount of editing can  justify sticking with a regular “RT.”
5. IRT Short for “In reply to” or “In response to” (or very rarely “Ironic Retweet”).
6. OH “Overheard.” Similar to HT if attributing to a specific Twitter username. Otherwise, just another popular Twitter acronym
7. /by The preferred method for author attribution. Sometimes used with no slash, e.g. “Great article by @user”
8. /cc This is just a way of including another username in a tweet so they will be notified of it. It comes from the email cc standard to send a “copy” of the email to another person. “CC” originally stood for “carbon copy,” coming from the old business letter-writing standard. Also commonly used with no slash, e.g. “I love this pic [link] cc @user1, @user2″
9. ta (British) or Ty (American) is slang for “Thank you” that some use: “[Tweet text and link, if any] ta @user” (Thanks to @EditorMark for pointing the British version out.)
10. QT Means “quoted tweet,” favored by Japanese Twitter users. (Thanks to @DanJDubya for pointing this out.)
11. r/p or r/t A repeated tweet.
12. TRT A translated retweet (invention credited to @dominiofeminino)

2. Syntax and punctuation

Here are some common examples (I’ve bolded #5 as my personal favorite):

1. RT @TweetSmarter: Why Misunderstanding Retweets Can Get You Suspended: http://bit.ly/emy7TX
2. RT @TweetSmarter Why Misunderstanding Retweets Can Get You Suspended: http://bit.ly/emy7TX (same as #1 but with no colon after username)
3. “@TweetSmarter: Why Misunderstanding Retweets Can Get You Suspended: http://bit.ly/emy7TX ” (make sure there is a space before the final quote mark if the tweet ends with an URL)
4. “Why Misunderstanding Retweets Can Get You Suspended: http://bit.ly/emy7TX (RT @TweetSmarter)
5. Why Misunderstanding Retweets Can Get You Suspended: http://bit.ly/emy7TX RT @TweetSmarter
6. Why Misunderstanding Retweets Can Get You Suspended: http://bit.ly/emy7TX /rt @TweetSmarter
7. Why Misunderstanding Retweets Can Get You Suspended: http://bit.ly/emy7TX /via @TweetSmarter
8. Why Misunderstanding Retweets Can Get You Suspended: http://bit.ly/emy7TX /@TweetSmarter
9. Why Misunderstanding Retweets Can Get You Suspended: http://bit.ly/emy7TX > @TweetSmarter
10. /@TweetSmarter: Why Misunderstanding Retweets Can Get You Suspended: http://bit.ly/emy7TX

3. How to link to or post a copy of a tweet

There are a number of options here. The main two scenarios are:

1. Needing to link directly to individual tweet ►http://j.mp/bsfDNB
2. Needing to post a copy of a tweet on a website ►http://j.mp/bek9VU

4. Why are there so many different ways to retweet?

While users experimented a bit with different methods, Twitter shares a lot of the blame. At one time they hid retweets from some in timelines intentionally without telling any0ne, causing an explosion of people experimenting with different methods, believing that Twitter was blocking tweets that had “RT” in them. Then when they created the non-editable style of retweet, they promised that tweets would be updated to show additional information, such as the chain of people who curated a tweet, then dropped that initiative. That’s right—at one time Twitter was working on giving tweets an additional part that could carry more information beyond 140 characters. (It was to be called “Twitter annotations.”)