Twitter limits you to 140 characters. For the rather verbose, those warriors of wordplay and practised punsters, this can be a major pain in the neck. It often involves length (1/12), (2/12) screeds that break up flow and look horrendous in terms of trying to thread a conversation.

What are some ways to avoid twittergestion (twitter congestion) or too-long tweets?

Learn shorthand, use shorthand, and do not fear the massive abbreviations.

Vowels? Wh nds m? You get the idea. When youâ€™re limited to such a small string of characters, each character counts. The point of Twitter isnâ€™t to write long-winded political screeds, but short and snappy rejoinders that are catchy.

One of the main obstacles that twitterpated twitterposters need to overcome is the sense of shame, perhaps culturally ingrained or perhaps more personally by a severe grammar teacher in the sixth grade, in poor spelling and grammar. The spelling bee police are notably absent from Twitter, and in some ways, most of the IM-friendly culture as spelling and grammar morph to suit the tools we use today. Twitter is one such tool.

â€œuâ€ is fine for you. â€œurâ€ is fine for your, or even youâ€™re. Vowels can be cut almost willy nilly whenever necessary.

Familiarize yourself with link shortening services such as bit.ly and ow.ly

Link shortening services like bit.ly, ow.ly, and tinyURL are great ways to take that enormous text string you want to share with mom, dad, the in-laws, and the out-laws into something maybe 12-18 characters long. That way, it doesnâ€™t get in the way of the awesome caption youâ€™ve prepared for the latest lolcat.

These services are generally free and exceptionally user friendly. I mean, how hard can it be? Just cut and paste the longer link into the link shortening service field, click, and voila -- instant shortening.

Donâ€™t feed the trolls! Reducing "noise" in communication and social networking

â€œTrollâ€ is a term for an internet commentor who is, either subtly or blatantly, fishing for angry or upset replies to a rather offensive or inflammatory comment (â€œflameâ€ -- boy, now weâ€™re getting into some really ancient net lingo!).

There are several memes surrounding trolls and the fact that good netizens refuse to engage them in single combat in any thread or conversation -- Twitter users should take up this banner and hold it high. Not only is it much more irritating to see a troll battle on Twitter as opposed to say, Facebook (where a single conversation thread can largely be ignored, whereas on Twitter it takes up the majority of a timely feed), but you will never convince a troll of anything.

They are a proxy for annoyance and needling -- they do not exist to be converted but rather to ensnare sensitive, thinking men and women to the shores of destruction much like the mythical sirens.

Donâ€™t be easily distracted, condense the nonsense into shrthnd, and familiarize yourself with link shortening services and youâ€™ll be a zen tweetmaster in no time flat.

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