Guide · 2 min read

Where 'the ratio' came from: a short history of the term

By the Twitter Ratio team · Updated

Short answer

'Ratio' entered English in the 1500s and became a maths term for comparing quantities. On Twitter, people started pointing at lopsided reply counts in early 2017; within weeks a rule of thumb (about two replies per retweet) was circulating, an April 2017 Esquire column explained 'the ratio', and by that summer 'ratioed' was everyday slang.

  • The online sense dates to early 2017, according to Merriam-Webster's research.
  • The first rule of thumb compared replies with retweets, at roughly 2 to 1.
  • An April 2017 Esquire column helped spread the name.
  • By the 2020s 'ratio' was also a one-word reply and a meme.

Slang usually arrives without paperwork. "The ratio" is unusual because its arrival was noticed and written about almost as it happened.

A maths word with a long past

Merriam-Webster's account starts in the 1500s, when "ratio" entered English with a meaning close to "reason". By the 1600s it had settled into its mathematical sense, a comparison of two magnitudes; the dictionary points to a 1660 English translation of Euclid among early uses. Merriam-Webster also finds it used as a verb by the late 1920s.

None of that had anything to do with social media, but it set up the joke: a ratio is one number set over another, and on Twitter there were plenty of numbers to set against each other.

Early 2017: the numbers get noticed

According to Merriam-Webster, the online meaning surfaced in March 2017, when Twitter users began pointing out that certain posts, one from a US congressman among them, were drawing far more replies than retweets. About a week later, someone put a number on it: if replies outnumber retweets by around two to one, the post has gone wrong.

The reasoning was the same as today. Retweets and likes are how people agree. Replies are how they object.

April to June 2017: the name spreads

In April 2017, an Esquire column titled "How to Know if You've Sent a Horrible Tweet" explained the ratio to a general audience. By June, "ratioed" was turning up all over Twitter as a verb: you didn't just have a bad ratio, you got ratioed.

The 2020s: ratio becomes a move

Over the next few years the word changed from a description into an action. Replying "ratio" to a post became a challenge: a bet that the reply would out-like the post. Chains like "L + ratio" piled insult on insult and became a meme in their own right, popular with sports and fan accounts.

The rebrand from Twitter to X in July 2023 renamed retweets as reposts, and the comparison drifted with it. Most people now compare replies with likes. Quote posts, which put a reaction in front of the quoter's own followers, became another way to pile on.

What stayed the same

Through all of it, the core idea hasn't moved: on a platform where agreeing is one tap and disagreeing takes a sentence, the balance between the two says something. Our Ratioed? checker puts that idea into numbers, and what getting ratioed means covers how to read it today.

Sources

Questions

Who invented the ratio?

Nobody can be credited with it. Merriam-Webster traces the online sense to a handful of Twitter users in March 2017 noticing that some posts drew far more replies than retweets, and to a rule of thumb that followed. Like most slang, it spread through many people at once.

Did the term change when Twitter became X?

The meaning stayed; the vocabulary around it shifted. Twitter rebranded as X in July 2023 and retweets became reposts, so people now compare replies with likes or reposts. The word 'ratio' itself survived the rename.

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