[Ads-l] "Does She Have _A_ TikTok?"

[Laurence Horn]

Seems like “Does s/he have a Twitter” (i.e. account) may not be unheard of.  I just tried “Do you have a twitter” -account, and got hits for that, although some false positives of the form “Do you have a Twitter buddy?”

LH

> On Mar 31, 2021, at 7:05 PM, Martin Purdy <00000bd8cf391c5b-dmarc-request at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> wrote:
> 
> I do recall my kids saying "xyz has *a* Facebook" rather than just "Facebook" or "a Facebook account".  I must check if they still consider it current.
> Martin NZ'
> 
> 
> 
>    On Thursday, April 1, 2021, 11:32:20 AM GMT+13, Martin Kaminer <martin.kaminer at gmail.com> wrote:  
> 
> I'm perplexed by the use of the indefinite article, mostly but not
> entirely by young people, when asking if someone is active on a
> particular social media platform. This seems more common with
> platforms preferred by younger people -- instagram, tiktok etc. -- and
> less say Facebook (I don't recall anyone ever saying "Does she have
> _a_ Facebook?" and certainly not "Does he have _a_ Gmail?").  I've
> interrogated several GenZ's about this and they seem clear that this
> is correct and are aware that this syntax elides the word "account"
> (They are actually asking "Does she have a TikTok account"). I
> understand colloquially dropping the word 'account', but inseting the
> indefinite article continues to perplex me. Does anyone have any
> theories?  One young social media aficionado insisted there is a
> distinction to be made between asking whether someone has an account
> on a particular platform and whether they have the app on their phone
> but I found this unconvincing.
> All explanatory suggestions welcomed.
> ~~ Martin Kaminer
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org