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you're damned fucking right

"Blog" and "moblog" are not transparent words. "Televisor" was not as good a term as "television" or "television set", and so it went away. I expect the same to happen to "moblog", if not "blog", in ten years. Because they're geek words. They're codemonkey words. (I can hear Cory Doctorow yelling, "l337, damnit!") They are crap, artificial, ugly kludges of words.

- Warren Ellis

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I have no idea what a transparent word is. Fact is, "blog" has evolved because it describes a discrete phenomenon that needs a name. As for ugly words, it's probably fortunate that we have a rough and ready word like "blog" and not, you know, "web journalette" or something like that. After all, who says "television set"? The thing is a TV. The thing is a blog.

Fact is, "blog" has evolved because it describes a discrete phenomenon that needs a name.

Horsecrap. What's wrong with "journal" or "diary"? Is the journal somehow special because it's online? No. It's just nerds being nerds for nerdness's sake. Please stop peeing in the lexical pool, `k thx.

You want this: blog is a word coined by guys who think diaries are girly things.

It's a nice theory. It still won't make the word go away. So if you loose your hate of it, you should calm down momentarily. Then you can go visit a few web sights.

DIE ENGLISH DIE DIE DIE MUAHAHAHHA *cough* *wheeze*

What's wrong with "journal" or "diary"? Is the journal somehow special because it's online?

YES! Yes, it is. Because a blog isn't just writing, it's also links to other things and commentary on them. That's a function specific to the internet, and it's not the same thing as the teenage girl writing in her little blank book.

The Agonist, who worked about 20 hrs a day during the Iraq war,
gathering links from worldwide sources on events as they unfolded,
was "keeping a diary"? I don't think so. He was blogging. No other word for it.

I don't think that either the interaction or the ability to add links warrant a new word; you can take the interaction away, and the links are just a feature of the medium.

The Agonist kept a public journal. Just like i am. People can refer to the activity with a fancy new name... but the fact remains that the fancy new name sucks and is superfluous.

I tend to agree...I never cared for the term "blog". It's a dopey, burpy, even vomitous, word. If they'd come up with something else, I would've been quicker to adopt.

Now, televisor, I like a lot.

Hey, it's still around in Spanish.

This I did not know! Hell, yet another reason why Spanish rules.

I don't know if "blog" is here to stay or not, but I don't think that "diary" or "journal" are suitable substitutions either.

A journal that a person keeps online and that does not involve interactions from people other than the author definitely is covered by "journal" or "diary". The fact that this online journal can contain links is irrelevant. With a trusty gluestick, I can add outside information like pictures, other people's essays, and articles to a paper journal. For that matter, I can even write down links to these things.

However, "blog" is more inclusive. Blogs are similar to online and paper journals except that they also include interactions from people other than the author.

I think that that difference is special enough that another word is warranted. Some words like "moblog" and "weblog" are destined to die alone and without fanfare. But "blog" itself has the potential to continue living. It might die, but I think its death will happen only if a better word comes along or if pretty much everyone gives up blogging.

In the first case, this new word needs to hurry up and come on the scene because "blog" has already entered mainstream vocabulary. My Perry-Como-listening father uses the word correctly and he still thinks that MTV only shows music videos. A new word is going to have a hard time erradicating the old word.

In the second case, the fad will fade, but blogs are sufficiently useful and engaging that they won't go away entirely. They'll just become yet another web-based tool and no longer be trendy.

Not sure why Ellis finds "blog" unacceptable but uses "kludge" as if it's not also a codemonkey word. Unless he's being ironic and my ironimeter is less sensitive than usual this morning.

-Michele G.

ESR's Jargon entry (http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/K/kluge.html) suggests it's been in use for quite a while and predates the use of computers. Anyway, i can see calling it a codemonkey word in its origin, but by now it's certainly in somewhat widespread use. And if the "b" word is still around in 10 years, i'll gladly cop to its validity via usage. But i still hate its guts, because it smells like it was coined by a snappy marketroid.

No way, man. There is no way that the rest of my family, and most of my friends and filmmaking pals, would respond to the word "kludge" other than by giving me a blank stare. Maybe we have different ideas of what "widespread use" means. I'd agree with you that "kludge" has been around for a while and many, many geeks and near-geeks use it, but I can't agree that it's in general parlance.

-Michele G.

Where did Ellis say this? Is there a page out there of Ellis' rants that -wasn't- HTML coded by a bunch of horribly angry five year olds on illegal prescription drugs?

One of his recent Bad Signals. SUBSCIRBE (mailto:badsignal-subscribe@lists.flirble.org) I don't think they're archived on the Web, but perhaps flirble has them archived somewhere else.

Also, you should buy a copy of "Come In Alone", which is a collection of a year of rants about the comics industry.

"Blog" is an ugly word, no question. I do think it serves a purpose, however.

What's a "moblog"? Is ti short for homoblog? Or mob-blog? Or something else entirely?

Keeping a journal via a mobile device.

Warbling, "Going moblog."

Uh, no. I gagged on that one.

"Blog" has the right specificity, even if the term postdates what it names by a good five years (there were blogs long before there was 'blog' - for pete's sake, YAHOO was a blog, per one axis of the genre, and there've been others dating back to the nascent days of the web - once folks put content up that wasn't research-related, they were inevitably updates of links to likeminded material). On the other hand, it lacks the euphony that a lived-in word needs. "Moblog" and other iterations ('mobile blog' - eg, writing on the road, in cafes and camped in front of apartment buildings with open wireless stations) are, on the other hand, overspecific since they neither refine per technical or taxonomic needs nor identify a specific genus that merits its uniqueness. It's shades of "B2B", "B2C", and all other sorts of terminology that the non-technical overlayed with supposed technical meaning for no good reason than the desire to contrive a genre and make money or fame thereby.

Or, in other words, since this form is exclusive to the web and unique because of it, why is a single term for it suddenly popular some ten years later? The hypemongers have something to rally around, that's why.

Since I'm old and crusty I consider 'blog' to be a weak alternative to 'web journal', 'journal', or what it portmanteaus: 'web log'. On the other hand, my other blog is called 'blog', because that seems to be what the kids are calling it these days. Deriding the form because of the word is wrong, and I have no intention of doing so, particularly since I've kept blogs in one form or another since 1994. And the inevitable backlash is whipping up just as quickly as the overlaying of ridiculous submedia (mobile blogging, photo blogging, audio blogging).

"Web log" isn't a good choice because, let's not forget, a web log was originally, and is properly, the name for the hits log on your server. - the thing that Wusage analyzes.

Damn thing's a blog. You guys are beginning to remind me of Abe Simpson.

"That doll is evil, i tells ya. Evil! Eeeeeeviillll!!!"

"Grandpa, you said that about all the presents."

"I just want attention."

As a sysadmin, i find this use of "Web log" anathema, because logs are the output of programs, not humans. Yes, ship captains have kept logs for centuries, but combine "Web" and "log" and we're talking about unique visitors and various Apache formats.

I deride the form only because of the inevitable crap that it produces (indeed, the fact that i even keep this damn thing updated suffuses me with irony).

that a ship's log was not originally a general journal either, but just a listing of the number of knots on the rope pulled out by an actual wooden log thrown off the stern.

The etymology of "blog" is clear: "web log" -> "weblog" -> "we blog." I'll be surprised if "weblog" or "web log" doesn't survive. I'll be surprised if "blog" does, outside of geek jargon. I haven't heard it yet from anyone who hasn't heard it directly from someone who does it.

When talking about blogs IRL, I generally say "online journal," figuring that has the best chance of being understood.

How do people generally pronounce "blog"? Does it rhyme with "dog" or with "flog"? I only remember hearing it from one person so far, and she says the latter.

Um, yes? If "dog" doesn't rhyme with "flog", maybe you should seek a speech therapist...

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