Last week, I talked a little about other types of tags outside of #hashtags.

Today, we’re going to cover a few even-less-frequently-used ‘tags, starting with the bracket family.

(tags and )tags are all about the ordering of operations.

(tags show that things that come after this should be combined with it before this is combined with things that came before. For example:

#shoes (underwearpants

)tags show that you should complete the things that came before, before the things in this tag. For example:

#pants )shoes

[tags and ]tags are used in a number of different ways. Most commonly, they are used to denote a paraphrase, such as:

[87yearsago

or to denote that a comment ‘distributes[1]’ its positivity or negativity over the entire preceding sentence or group of sentences, rather than just the single word. Example:

You are amazing, you are wonderful, you are a Stegosaurus. ]true

More complex usages of the [tags and ]tags include the ][tag, which denotes when a major video game company is about to take some of your pieces[2].

{tags and }tags are generally used to denote sets and groupings, especially when your intended meaning is at odds with the traditional grouping or non-grouping of the items in question. Examples:

{applesoranges

“…apples” }horses[3]

_tags are meant to underline or underscore a point, to make it abundantly clear. Example:

Timothy Zahn _beststarwarsbooks

-tags, sometimes known as -dashtags[4], are used for remarks which are not directly related to the topic at hand, but which the author wants to bring to your attention as an aside. Example:

“Foam swords can be a very important part of your balanced marriage.” -snlswords[5]

[1]This meaning is from chemistry, where square brackets are used to show that positive and negative charge are distributed over the entire ion.

[2]Atari, and atari.

[3]Even though I’m sure that the horse would like to be grouped with the apples. Of course, that horse would mean that you would have no apples left.

[4]Not to be confused with -houndtags.

[5]’S-Words’, as described in http://snltranscripts.jt.org/96/96hjeopardy.phtml