What is RT?

I have been using twitter for a few months now and I am still trying to understand "Twitter Speech" .  One of the things I have notice is the "RT" inserted in so many post. At first I thought it was a way to get people to re-tweet but I began to think I was wrong. Why would someone want people to re-tweet they had a bad hair day? So being the computer savvy, (I know that's wrong but it helps stroke my ego), I Google it.  Here is the link I got in the search. https://www.google.com/search?ix=seb&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=RT.

The top 5 results were:

RT

rt.com/

RT is the first Russian 24/7 English-language news channel which brings the Russian view on global news.

On air — RT

rt.com/on-air/

RT is a 24/7 English-language news channel. We are set to show you how any story can be another story altogether.

Movies | Movie Trailers | Reviews - Rotten Tomatoes

www.rottentomatoes.com/

Rotten Tomatoes - Movies, Movie Reviews, Critic Scores, Showtimes and Movie Trailers - The Ultimate Movie Database!

RT: Request Tracker - Best Practical

bestpractical.com/rt/

A free web and email-based bug tracking and trouble ticketing system. Features list, documentation screen shots, and download.

Sacramento Regional Transit District Home Page

www.sacrt.com/

Operates 80 bus routes and 27 miles of light rail covering a 418 square-mile service area. System map, fare information, schedule, and list of expansion projects.

Now one would think it should have been in the top 5 but it was in the 6th that pointed to twitter to educate me on how it was used. 

Twitter FAQ: RT, HT, OH Explained. | Brent Ozar PLF

www.brentozar.com › Computers

Aug 18, 2008 – What does RT mean on Twitter? Brent explains all these slang terms that you keep hearing on Twitter, like RT, HT, OH, #FF, retweet, and so on.

In Twitter "RT" means ReTweet. "RT is an abbreviation for ReTweet, which is like Repeat. It’s like forwarding, but for Twitters instead of emails. If you see something really cool from one of the people you follow, you may want to ReTweet it so that the people following YOU (and not the original person) can see it"  So I was right about it being a way to request people to re-tweet but I must now ask if it is now being over used. Do the people of the world really need to know about a bad hair day?

http://www.brentozar.com/archive/2008/08/twitter-101/