New Twitter Punctuation: Post-Post-Meaningful Brackets [ ]
Here at The ## we realize that we owe a great debt to the Twitter community. That’s why we’ve been trying to figure out a new form of punctuation unique to our 140-character generation definer.
Yes, we have the @reply, the ReTweet and, of course, the hashtag. But is there room for a fourth? We think so. We thought [long and hard] about not only what Twitter needed, but also online writing in general. We discussed the problem late in to the night with @bartonlabs and a bottle of Jack.
And then it hit us. We realized that we had to do something to promote the cause of post-post-meaningfulness and fight the incessant growth of sarcasm that threatens to spiral the entire Interweb in on itself and that this was the perfect way to do it. Tweeters and bloggers should be able to make it clear, to assert with unobtrusive, yet unmistakable certainty, when they want to be taken seriously, without pun or innuendo, metaphor or sexual tension being read in to their prose.
So without further ado, The ## would like to present: POST-POST-MEANINGFUL BRACKETS!
Basically post-post-meaningful brackets are to be used when you want to tweet or write something that would otherwise be taken as cynical or sarcastic but you intend it to actually be heartfelt and meaningful…
The brackets can also be used to show that no pun or innuendo is meant when someone might read otherwise read one…
Here are some other examples:
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To put it plainly, they are the opposite of single or double quotation marks, telling the reader that the opposite is intended. Part of the idea of using brackets is their standard use: editing quotations. For example rather than “it’s a witty, conceptual blog,” journalists might choose to print, “[The ##] is a witty, conceptual blog.” In that sense they are the anti-quotes.
In a world where the Internet is filled with sarcasm and scare quotes (typed or implied), we need the proper, standardized tools to fight back. So we urge you, assert your post-post-meaningfulness! Use PPM brackets!
(Love Actually photo via)
