Now may not be a good time to tell you then that according to a newspaper article I read recently (sorry no link), Buckingham Palace is in the process of setting up a Twitter account for QEII.
Thankfully, as confirmed above "One is not Twittering." I just think, as I said before, it is too personal for the Head of State, so I am pleased about that.
Queen Rania's daily work is a "job". Thankfully we no longer live in an era where people view their monarchs as special beings with Divine Right, at least I thought we didn't. Monarchies are not permanent or forever, just ask the Iranians or Greeks on that score.
Although I am most certainly not a proponent of the Divine Right of Kings, I do believe that there is a certain dignity expected of a King or a Queen, which does not involve Twittering about which films are being watched over the weekend or using unnecessary text-speak; I understand that there is a need for brevity in the messages, but there is no need to convert an s, for example, into a z when an s takes up no more room than a z, for example in 'Baptizm' - baptism would have been fine, unless it was a simple mistake in the Queen's English, in which case I take that back.
And if this is supposed to be connecting and engaging people from all over the world, there will be people whose English is not as good as Queen Rania's, and who will not be familiar with text-speak in English - looking up a word like baptizm in a dictionary is not going to yeild any results and does not aid communication. For example, even people who speak fairly good Chinese get stumped by Chinese text-speak - or me, in French or Spanish, I can get the gist of French text-speak but I despair of ever understanding messages sent to me in Spanish...
Moreover their relevance in today's world is a question that needs to be answered over and over, engaging with the public, opening up their world and allowing the public in is not only inevitable, but a very smart move.
I think that the world of a monarch can become somehow too opened up; one has to find a balance between transparency and far too much detail. In my opinion, it is necessary for the survival of a monarchy that there be some aura of mystery surrounding them. Too much 'opening up' can be harmful; as we say in Chinese, 水能载舟,亦能覆舟 (Not only can water float a boat, it can sink it too).
Congrats to the Queen for joining Twitter.
I will, however, echo you on this, it is a good thing that she is trying out new ideas, even if I'm just not convinced by this.
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