• A grammar for the practice •
[1½ MIN READ]
I’m not a terribly canny social media person, even as an information specialist. I understand the role of hashtags, but I don’t use them well. For my purposes, the only ones I’ve bothered to use are the ones I’ve created: #negativesplitorpositivesplat and #dothedue. They’re in my signature every single Rumination blogpost.
The reality is that I only use the former phrase occasionally, for instance when I’m literally writing about negative splitting a run or just doing better later in life than earlier. Hashtags in social media allow a reader to click and read all messages that use them. If a message isn’t relevant to the topic, a poster shouldn’t use a hashtags. That way messages don’t group where they don’t belong. So, when I’m not writing about the “splitting” or “doing,” I don’t use the hashtag; instead, I use the phrase in quotes. That way I can still associate with the practice of negative splitting without grouping posts that aren’t literally about the topic.
The latter phrase I use all the time—in actuality—so it’s never in quotes. I’ve done it as a hashtag so consistently that I don’t even bother checking anymore if my usage is still appropriate: It pretty much always is. What’s interesting is why. The fact is that I always seem to write with doing something—putting into action—as a subtext: That is, I always think readers would do well to act in a specific way as a result of reading what I wrote. I’m kind of preachy that way.
That means this Rumination has a take away, too, which is not to do something mindlessly. Be thoughtful in running and in hashtagging.
-CtCloser (Calvinthe) “Negative Split or Positive Splat” #dothedue
FINE PRINT ¶Text by Calvin Wang (Wäng), CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. ¶Cross-published: Facebook Shawmont Running Club (ZY Weekly Newsletter 1/6/24), Shawmont Running Club website, Ruminations by CtCloser
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