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I’ve been making dictation of English news broadcasting for a couple of years in order to maintain listening proficiency of English.

On yesterday's AP radio news broadcasted through AFN Tokyo (Eagle 810), I heard the following lines reporting the latest box office sales ranking.

“Lots of twilhearts went to the movie this weekend to see Edward and Bella wed. “Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn Part 1” is No. 1 at the box office.”

The beginning word of the above line certainly sounded to me as “Lots of twilhearts,” not “twilight.” But I don’t know what “twilheart” mean. I found the word, “twilhearts” in several excerpts on Google without definition, but there’s no entry of such word as “twilhearts” in any English dictionaries at hand.

Does the statement “Lots of twilhearts went to the movie to see Edward and Bella wed,” make sense? If it does, what does it mean? If it doesn’t make sense, do you have any idea about what the right word it should be”?

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Since you say that you heard it, you may want to check out all the homophones of "twilhearts" as well! – Kris Nov 22 '11 at 12:48
1  
How does one pronounce 'twilheart'? It seems more natural that the twilight-heart combo would be 'tw-aye-hart', not 'twill-hart'. – Mitch Nov 22 '11 at 14:23

4 Answers

up vote 8 down vote

I belive that what you heard was actually twi-hards, a portmanteau of Twilight and die-hards.

In the Urban Dictionary you can find twihard and twi-hard.

There is also a fan website at www.twihards.com, but they messed it up and you currently just get a directory listing, but the site can be found in the subfolder www.twihards.com/twihards.com/

Most media that have a lot of followers also get a slang term for the followers. Among the strongest followers we find:

  • Wholigans for Doctor Who
  • Trekkies/trekkers for Star Trek
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That's what I though originally, but TwiHearts sounds more likely, especially in context. – Unreason Nov 22 '11 at 13:41
@Unreason: Yes, that's possible. It's also possible that twihearts comes entirely from a misheard twihards. – Guffa Nov 22 '11 at 14:16
oh, yes, sure, but the point is instead of what was twilheards misheard? As I said, in the context (of the wedding) I would go for hearts. (And, also solely on the base of shorter edit distance to the OP's request) – Unreason Nov 22 '11 at 14:27
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@Guffa. After reading your answer, I reheard the tape of the part of news in question. It sounded more like “twihards” than “twilhearts” that I thought I heard so. To non-native English speakers’ ears, it’s sometime hard to discern the difference of the sounds of “ds” and “ts” though not as much as the distinction of “L” and “R” sound and “in” and “and” spoken fast particularly on TV and radio. I am amazed at voracious creativity of neologisms in American pop culture – Yoichi Oishi Nov 22 '11 at 19:38
up vote 3 down vote

It is probably a neologism for Twilight fanboys, similar to the "potterheads" you also found in your Google search.

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up vote 2 down vote

Twilheart seems like a contraction of Twilight and Heart - meaning those who are obsessed or fanatic about Twilight including being part of Team Edward etc, it isn't a dictionary word.

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One would expect this possible portmanteau to appear in urban dictionary, but it does not. Maybe there is another interpretation or it is really new/local. Still, this would be what I would assume. – Unreason Nov 22 '11 at 12:36
Portmenteu was what I was going to say but wasn't sure as I'd not heard the word before but seen Tweets etc about Twilight and wasn't suprised to see something like this at all! – RoguePlanetoid Nov 22 '11 at 14:10
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Twiheart is in Urban Dictionary: urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=TwiHeart OP seems to have just misheard it. – onomatomaniak Nov 22 '11 at 17:42
Interesting - do hear a lot of words like this, but hadn't heard either version but similar things though - guess the Saga extends beyond the Films/Books after all! – RoguePlanetoid Nov 23 '11 at 9:23
up vote 1 down vote

There is no mention of the portmanteau twilheart on urbandictionary (which is despite its deficiencies a good source for neologism and popular culture reference).

Searching for "names for twilight fans" I ran across the term Twi-Hards.

This article on MTV's site states:

"Twi-Hards is a nickname Michael Welch lovingly gave us on his blog," wrote TotalEclipse, defending the term. "There are some of us who think it's funny."

but most think it is derogatory, fan history wiki states

Twihards derogatory name for hardcore Twilight fans.

and urban dictionary has more. It is definitively not as derogatory as twitards.

Ah, after all this searching I took a better look at urban dictionary and got twihearts

TwiHeart refers to a person who is unconditionally and irrevocably obsessed and in love with the Twilight Saga.

(take into account that urban dictionary is not to be taken as authoritative on definitions, but it proves some people use it for Twilight Saga fans)

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