A recent report on the BBC discussed the measures some companies take to monitor any negative comments written about them on social networking sites. The problem is that the software has a fundamental flaw in that it cannot always interpret the language used. The article states:
“It's a crude science, with accuracy levels as low as 60%, as analysis falls victim to slang and subculture. "This movie kills" can mean something different in Bradford to Boston...Some social media tools don't allow users to customise their "sentiment dictionaries"...But even the best software would probably judge the tweet "This board is really bad" as a negative comment, although it might be the ultimate praise among skateboarders.One European clothing company, popular with inner city youth in the United States, admits privately that its social media team is baffled by its customers' ever changing slang, and even the online Urban Dictionary provides little help.”
I am particularly interested in the way certain words are used to mean the exact opposite of their intended/original meaning, For example, when a young person describes something as “wicked” they generally mean that it is “cool” - and that word itself has nothing to do with temperature!