you're damned fucking right

[rone]

"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

Comments

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

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).

One might also remember

[vardissakheli.livejournal.com]

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.

Re: One might also remember

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

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