I decided to take it easy this week and write about a topic close to the heart; or shall I say, close to my head.

This will be about a hobby, of which I had introduced in an earlier post. It’s gotta do with having fun with words. Go on, make a guess.

If you thought of “#MarkHWords“, you’re spot on. I plan to create a #MarkHWords chronicle to log all my musings and creations in this sphere.

So, this should be a shorter post. Variety (of content) is the spice of a blog, isn’t it?

Why Create a #MarkHWords Chronicle?

I reckon it is nice to count how many #MarkHWords pieces I’d put out there in cyberspace. Egotism and narcissism on display here? Ha ha 🙂 None intended, really.

Importantly, I wanted a more permanent place to keep all my work on acrostics and permit easy access to both old and new stuff. And sorting them in chronological order seems a neat way to log these WittyCulus ideas which enrich my grey matter.

So, why not?

Social Media Can Be Messy

Social media platforms like Facebook can be convenient places to share my  #MarkHWords creations. They allow my friends and fans to stay up to date with my latest wisecracks, which I can publish and share with ease.

But Facebook ain’t really a space to share detailed thoughts and lengthy discussions. Attention span is short here, with plenty of content from other users — those we chose to follow, plus sources Facebook deems of interest to us — competing for our eyeballs!

While the Web can have lasting memory, posts on social media tend to get buried as quickly as they made their first appearances. Algorithms are in place to ensure users stay glued to the platforms consuming the latest and greatest.

It can thus become tough to search for older posts, hashtags and other markup and filtering options not withstanding. Also, there is the copyright issue as to the ownership of user-submitted content.

Good reasons enough to go ahead with my intended approach.

Numbering Scheme for #MarkHWords Chronicle

I’m setting the start date of my #MarkHWords chronicle at August 23rd, 2017. This was the day I thought up MHW0001 — go here to find out why this one is so special.

Yup, each #MarkHWords entry in the chronicle will be assigned a 4-digit number, preceded by the letters “MHW”. This number will be in running order based on the date (and time) inspiration hit for each acrostic idea.

Four digits (excluding 0000) mean there’s plenty of acronyms to store, just one shy of ten thousand! Will I ever reach this huge number?

Click the link to have a look at the first five new #MarkHWords I made last week…

Not Forgetting The Older #MarkHWords Out There

Before this post and the plan to chronicle those #MarkHWords, I’d already created quite a few of these wacky acronyms and shared them, mainly on Facebook. I want to capture them as well in my chronicle for posterity.

How to do this?

It’s highly unlikely that I’ll crank out #MarkHWords acrostic pieces in the high thousands. So starting the numbering sequence backwards, from 9999, will work well to accommodate the older creations. This would take up a few tens of places at most.

For this backwards numbering scheme, I will start with recent #MarkHWords you’d seen in earlier posts. Followed by scouring my notes and also the ‘Net for more acronyms I had posted.

I will be assigning the MHW numbers based on which acronym I come across first — there’s no other meaningful order I can follow practically.

#MarkHWords is Fun; Mind Boggling Too!

If you’ve gotten into playing with words like I had, you would have enjoyed a good measure of satisfaction. But success can be varied as some words may prove a harder nut to crack.

And most words can’t be made into acronyms that explain or tease the very  words themselves. Sure, you could write an acrostic poem utilising the letters in a word (click to see an example), but that’s something different altogether.

What About Unfinished #MarkHWords?

Ideas can come any time but completing a meaningful acronym can be mind wrecking at times. Still, I should think of a way to catalogue these and revisit them — note to self.

Take for example the word “apple”. If this were to be about the world-famous mobile phone maker, then “A PC People Loved Easily” would be a great tribute to the company’s hey days 🙂

But my eyes saw something different: there’s “A” at the front, for Adam; and “E” for Eve at the back! You probably know the type of apple acrostic I was challenging myself to create… I’m still struggling with this though.

I Hope You’re Having Fun Too!

Well, that’s the nature of word play and the fun behind #MarkHWords. You never know when the guy up there (in the head) starts going bonkers by amusing himself with inspiration of this kind.

Perhaps you have a word or two of this sort to share? I’d be really happy to hear about them, so leave a comment to let me know 🙂