Let's Talk #Hashtags

It started with Latin, of course. Everything starts with Latin despite what the Greeks want to believe. *wink*

It is often claimed that the symbol traces its origins to the symbol ℔, an abbreviation of the Roman term libra pondo, which translates as "pound weight". This abbreviation was printed with a dedicated ligature type, with a horizontal line across, so that the lowercase letter "l" would not be mistaken for the numeral "1": ℔. Ultimately, the symbol was reduced for clarity as an overlay of two horizontal strokes "=" across two forward-slash-like strokes "//".

Then it started hanging around as the musical note sharp.

Composers were the cool kids on the block with their sharps and their genius arrangements including other musical notes.

And then in the late 1800's book-keeping manuals and courses differentiated its use between serving as a number symbol and serving as a symbol for weight - pounds.

We Americans might think we are the cool kids since how it is currently known, "hashtag", appeared at the tweet of an American BUT we are behind, in typical fashion. The term for the symbol, #, "Hash sign" is found in South Africans writings from the late 1960s, and from other non-North-American sources in the 1970s.

In my {younger} day{s} it was called the pound sign/key and was most commonly seen, by me at least, on the phone as a symbol to dial to - rotary phones - and later on a button to push - still available today.

I was unaware of any update to the pound sign all the way until January 2012. My hub and I were with a few thousand of our closest Young Life friends at a big celebration and all the skits that week as well as funny video clips kept asking us to use a hashtag with the celebration theme on our social media platforms. For the first day or two I couldn't figure out what they meant by hashtag because they kept showing the pound sign. The few people I inquired of didn't know what a hashtag was either. By the end of the celebration week I was catching on and I thought it was a new trend. Turns out I was a few years behind being in the know. The pound sign morphed from what a lot of of us know, or knew, it as a little over 10 years ago. On August 23, 2007 San Francisco techie and former Google developer Chris Messina sent a tweet using it.

And the way we speak hasn't been the same since. These days the hashtag is used and abused. It's used in serious matters and in jest. One of my favorite mockings of it comes at the genius of Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake. Let's just take a time out to watch them real quick shall we? 

                 

And we're back. *grin* Hashtags are everywhere these days. I even spotted them formed into a baked or fried potato product!

I don't know how you feel about hashtags but I think they should be used in moderation. Sometimes one person will attach so many hashtags to a post that I find myself much like this:






But yet here I am, introducing a whole year - 365 days - of hashtags. So what gives? Well, I succumbed to the alliteration of them. You'll see what I mean if you choose to follow the next 365 where...

But don't despair. I'm NOT going to #hashtag #every #single #word #for #the #next #365 #days. Each month the days of the week will feature a different hashtag. To give you a peek at the next 365 here's a small sampling of them: #WebsiteWednesdays, #MakeItHappenMondays, #FamilyFridays, #SelfieSaturdays, #TrendingTuesday, #SundaySweets, #ThumbsUpThursday. 

I hope you'll join me as we hashtag our way through the next 365 days. Let's get this party started!