I briefly mentioned this in a previous post, but I have to be honest that it’s mildly alarming how many queries I receive that misuse the word “blog.” I’ve seen everything from “the webpostings on your Blogsite” to “your blogspot on your website.” People are personalizing, which is great, but… word people should not be misusing words.
Now, before I get accused of sarcasm for writing this post: this is not sarcasm. Some people need this info, and hopefully this will clear things up.
Let’s drill down a bit into the different words and usage. OED, eat your heart out:
The whole shebang: it’s a blog, singular. It’s not blogs or a blogger or a blogsite or a blogpsot. Just: blog. Or, if you want to get fancy, weblog, only no one really says that. Example: “I read your blog.”
An individual entry on the blog: a post. Example: “I loathed your post on rhetorical questions, but I’m submitting to you anyway.” (“Entry” is interchangeable with “post.” Thanks, Scott).
Multiple entries on the blog: posts. Example: “Thank you for your posts on The Hills, which were deeply philosophically illuminating.”
Proper usage of the word “blogs”: Blogs, plural, refers to different blogs at different sites. Example: “I like to procrastinate by reading as many publishing industry blogs as possible.”
Blog as a verb: Blogging as an overall activity is “to blog.” Example: I blog, you blog, we blog, they blog. (thanks to Charlie for suggestion this addition). However, to add something specific to your blog you can either use the past tense of “blog” or “post.” Example: “I posted an entry on blogging” or “I blogged about blogging today.” (thanks to Kate)
A person who blogs: A blogger. Example: “He is a wild and crazy blogger.”
And with that, I’ll conclude this webposting.
Great post, Nathan …
I cringe at the misuse of the apostrophe
Nett
Looking forward to similar post on Twitter, but am afraid you might tell us that a tweet in the past tense is a…, well, a…, well, I can't say or my post won't pass the spam test.
P.S. Bryan/Ink: what do you mean you've never had a crumpet? Have you been hiding in Saskatchewan???
Oh, okay. So say blog "post" or blog "entry" NOT blog thingy.
Gotcha. Thanks. 🙂
Seriously?
Writers who don't know what a blog is should stick to querying agents that only accept snail mail and will respond after 3 months.
Hi Nathan: I tried to respond to your reply, but it got sent back as spam, so I just want to say "Thanks" for getting back to me on that.
But "blog" is really a horrid word, IMHO, and I'm happy to see it abused until someone comes up with something better.
I'm posting my "essays" again over at the Red Room, if any of you folks are interested.
Jen P: Check out "The Language Instinct" by Steven Pinker.
This post filled me with joy, a common experience when I visit your blog.
And ROFLMAO at Lisa's comment (#1)!!
Thanks for the post (and the chance to procrastinate).
Holly,
I'm a proud Ontarioan! Well, I was proud until my city fell apart. Ah, Windsor…
And, in fact, now that I think about it I'm not exactly sure I even know what a crumpet is… I have a feeling it's edible and floury, but this could be wrong.
Little Miss Trumpet
Sat on her crumpet,
eating her curds and whey…
It must be large, whatever it is…
🙂
Bryan
A few more.
This is a "comment" in response to a "post" or to another "comment", in all likelihood, itself a response to the "post". This makes me a "commenter" rather than a "commentator", which would be someone commenting on a post from another site rather than within the blog of origin.
This is not a "post", so I am not a "poster", and though the poster (aka. the blogger) may leave comments, particularly comments addressing commenters (for you'll find they rarely comment on themselves), they are always known as the poster or blogger or author, even when addressed in regard to a comment they have made. Remember; even if he happens to be doing the dishes, the king is never a dishwasher. Beware; commenters can be called authors too, because, like posts, comments are also authored.
When citing a comment a poster has made on someone else's blog, you should refer to them as "poster" when you are commenting on their blog, and as "commenter" when commenting on someone else's blog, but can refer to them as blogger or poster if you yourself are blogging about a citation made by some foreign poster on your blog, one assumes, in response to one of your own posts.
The things commenters do, happen "on" a blog, while the things posters do, happen "in" a blog. Nathan Bransford writes in his blog, while I write on his blog. There are two exceptions to this. First…
…I'm just going to stop here. I'm actually torturing myself at this point.
…as well as the rest of us…
That wasn't mean, right? 😉
I'm one of those people who had no idea what any of these terms meant before last year, but I also didn't send out queries proving my incompetence. I have since consulted my "nearest teenager" and taught myself "to blog" – I like the verb form best. "Google" is definitely a verb as another commenter noted – I personally Google or tell someone else to Google at least 10 times per day. Anyway, I beg you not to delve into Twitter or tweeting or whatever it is, because I can't handle learning something else right now…I'm trying to write a book! 🙂
I imagine specific blog terms are partially personal preference because Internet technology is still evolving. "Blog" is short for "weblog", and some Internet computer business sites still refer to "blogs" as "weblogs" or "web logs". There is even a Weblog Awards program. Some sites differentiate among the different types of blogs now available, e.g. "photoblog" or "vlog" which is the abbreviated form of "video log". A microblog is a blog of short comments about a poster’s daily life, and "Twitter" is technically a "microblog".
Twitter terms are now evolving as well. Interestingly enough, About.com has a web log (web log is the term they use) about Twitter terminology. When you post on Twitter, you actually "tweet", and the people to whom you send your "tweets" are fellow "tweeps". In addition, if you want to copy and send someone else’s tweet to your subscribers, you type RT for "retweet" followed by the @ sign before the Twitter name of the person who originally sent out the tweet.
I like Conan O’Brien’s joke that, in the year 3000, YouTube, Twitter and FaceBook will combine to form YouTwitFace.
THANK YOU!!!
I'm not always a formalist, but there are lines that should not be crossed, simply for clarity's sake.
From Peter Rubie's bbo, The Elements of Storytelling, he quotes Thomas Mann:
"A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."
Every Single Time I write, I learn how to use words better.
But if I had to do it in the reverse, I probably would never have dared to write at all.
Especially, on computers, typos slip up so easily or the wrong word.
Some would have us run away in shame. Others nurture the tender writer, take his hand, and help him to play the game better as he goes.
I am dyslexic. I appreciate learning the correct ways when my brain has made a pattern–a mistaken pattern–of a word. But please don't assume, because of my typos or learning curves, (that an editor could easily remedy) that my story is also a miss (pun intended).
@ Jen P
'Fat' in teen-speak is generally 'phat' – to differentiate.
What a great post about blogging on your blog.
Do I get an "A" ?
"I blog, you blog, we blog, they blog."
Sounds like an old Cyndi Lauper song. Can you say, "she bops?" Er, "she blogs."
Bransford knew his site copped its share of attacks. It didn't matter, he had Mr Brown’s canon at his disposal. That sucker would outgun the bastards, even if he had to stay cornered in this god-forsaken blog cabin he had built.
————-
Endless rants had been posted throughout the night. Now the dawn arrived and with it the mist. Bransford sculled three fingers of duty-free 'tension-tamer' tea, savoured the scald then waited for his head to clear. The internet always clouded his brain. Too much crap writing, rolling in on him like a San Francisco blog.
—————
Collective term? A web of blogs, perhaps?
Gotta go work … too much procrastination.
Loving the comments. (BTW, you might want to add a subsection for terms referring to the comments section of a post. Then the archives of a blog. Hey, maybe you should write a book.)
Jen P is right that language, especially as it relates to current technology, is fluid.
Recently on a conference call, my coworker noted that the call was being "tape recorded" and people could download the mp3 in a few days from our intranet site. In fact, no tape was ever used. My children don't even know what "tape record" means. When they saw a Sony Walkman in a TV show recently, they thought it was some huge mp3 player. They were aghast to find out that us old folks used to have to use cassette tapes. They kept asking how you downloaded songs from iTunes to the tape.
At least I'm clever enough not to call Blogger a BBS. (Anyone here old enough to know what BBS stands for? How about "baud"?)
And we're on the topic of using the English words properly …
Irregardless (no such word — regardless if you've heard/seen it used correctly — and in this case, you didn't).
Could care less (caring less for that whichever it is you care more for that other that) vs.
Couldn't care less (In the vernacular of Clark Gable: "I don't give a damn.") 🙂
"Needless to say … " well, duh, don't say it, then.
Abuse/misuse of "too" and "to" and "your" and "you're."
Overcooked the gerunds in a story/novel.
Excessive use of "that."
Too much sugar of passive voice.
And someone left the salt shaker cap off the well of HASs, HAVEs and HASs. Enough!
Awesome birthday entry, Nathan, thank you.
(yes, it's my birthday, ppl not his — but if it is, Have a happy just the same. :))
~Missye
I love the author who sends out an e-mail announcement each time she blogs announcing her new blog is up at…blah blah blah
I corrected her once, she still didn't get it.
It's a POST…sheesh.
Technically, irregardless is a word; though regardless is preferred. With everything else, I concur.
"For Memoirs of a BBB:
You should google Merriam-Webster, my friend. I google, you google, we google and blog!"
Linguistic purists and Patent & Trademark attorneys would beg to differ. Like Xerox, Google is a corporate which over time has come to mean something other than it was intended for. That Merriam-Webster defines Google as a verb only supports my original post that words (not unlike identities) evolve and sometimes take on entirely different meanings. What is important is that the people who are offering and receiving the communication share an understanding of the words being communicated or at the very least understand the possibility of other interpretation. Which I guess is why I think word people should use, misuse, challenge, invent, retire, mix them up, strip them down and pretty much anything else they want to do with them.
Chad
M.K.,
"irregardless" is a word (though considered inelegant). So Says Messrs. Webster, Oxford and Penguin. Pedantic fellows, I know, but everyone's got a fault or two. Just don't invite them to the party – they really kill the small talk with all that stuff about "onomatopoeia" and "dyspepsia". Always a downer, that dyspepsia…
Lol, Bane. Great minds yada yada yada…
Blog-gone-it! Damn good post.
Nathan,
Thanks for the reminder of how we manage to maul the English language using 'blog' as an example. Those are great points from the other readers as well, and I like how you update your post with info after the initial posting.
INK said:
RE – English crumpets, "Well, I'm not sure I've ever actually had a crumpet."
INK: Hello fellow Canuck!
For the record, a English crumpet as far as I know it is a spongy type of breakfast bread with lots of little holes on top, they're circular about 3-4 inches, and are great with honey, as it drips into the little holes. They serve them at the Empress Hotel in Victoria, BC. We have lots of ex-Brits here in British Columbia.
Sorry if this has already been answered – I haven't read through every comment.
But the word "blog" originated from: web log. Nathan keeps a web log. But then a very smart someone put the two words together, ditched the we in web, and voila! We have a blog.
As far as twitter goes, twitter is the website. When you send a message you "tweet" you don't twitter. Twitter is a noun, not a verb.
You don't blogspot either. You go to some website.blogspot.com. Jeez.
People should use these terms accurately. If they don't it's a good indication that they don't really get these particular tools. Any writer who so much misses what the words mean, you have to wonder how good a writer they are.
JMO
Okay, I have to admit – the misuse of the word "blog" and any of its derivatives have never bothered me. But I could see how it would if I dealt with it everyday.
I hope this isn't one of those things that now that it's been brought to my attention is going to make me go crazy!!!!
How could I just say "blog" when what you really provide is a "blog-o-rama of bloggy informationocity"? (Could I use that on my query?)
Arrgh! Continue on.
My post was irrelevant once I went back and read your first line. 😉
I enjoy your blog! I just created my own this past weekend! Wahoo!
is it okay to say "I keep a blog" he asks timidly ?
I have a question for any skillful bloggers out there. I just found out my email subscribe button has not been working on my blog (several people emailed me to tell me they weren't getting updated posts).
So tonight I changed the HTML code and fixed it, but does Feedburner keep track of the actual email addresses so I know who to contact to re-subscribe? Yes, I looked it up on Blogger help but couldn't find it and I think I'm going cross-eyed now after the last two hours, so any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!
Sounds like someone needs a nap.
Keep up the good work Mr. Blog! That was entertaining and informative.
I wonder sometimes, whether English language evolution is already over and if it has now entered the devolution phase.
For some reason I find it incredibly sad that there was a need for you to post this. But, yes. There was. Cos I get them, too.
Sigh…
Honestly I think your a little bit of a nerd (in a good way), thanks for the laugh – I mean info.
Irregardless is a perfectly cromulent word.
(Short posts only. No complete sentences. Must finish first draft of novel. 15K words to go.)
Late to the party today… but still pleased I stopped by. It saddens me that the English language has devolved over the years (as Writer from Hell suggested) – the fact that words like "blog," "tweet," and "google" have now become actual verbs is, well, a little disturbing… and yet I very much appreciate today's lesson. Even if the devolution of standard English is disconcerting, I find it best to be able to communicate in our fast-moving computer age without sounding like a total dunce!
Regardless (or should I say "irregardless"?), I must admit – between Nathan's blogalicious blow-by-blow and the trippy explanations by the likes of Central Content Publisher and Marilyn Peake (thanks by the way!), I was reminded of "The Princess Bride" (which I'm currently reading):
Wesley: Truly, you have a dizzying intellect!
Vizzini: Just WAIT till I get going!
@Lisa – thanks for the book tip. Looks interesting.
@ Elaine 'Still writing" Smith – thanks for the spelling – I had no idea what this meant until very recently – I live in Germany and a current TV advert (in German) for fat-free cream used a little boy dressed as a rapper saying it was (translated) "full fat" – intending to mean 'cool' etc – but the sister argues it's not, because it's fat-free. (You can see where it goes.) So that's even more odd now, when it isn't even the same word, it's just translated from its sound, not written use.
@Tim Bosworth
In the real world, Twitter is primarily a verb:
"Those darn birds twitter all day long."
and secondarily a noun:
"I heard a twitter behind me, so I turned…"
Therefore I've always wondered why one tweets instead of twittering. (Well, ok, I've only wondered for the past year or two.)
Does everyone else still feel silly saying they tweeted too?
I'm a blogger, you're a blogger, he's a blogger, she's a blogger…wouldn't you like to be a blogger too?
(to the tune of Dr Pepper commercial)
Central Content Publisher: However did you author that comment without your head exploding? 🙂
The word irregardless is similar to "reiterate" in that it has more letters and syllables than it needs to say the same thing.
And can I say that I abhore the term "tweet". We're on the fast track to becoming pets for aliens with that one.
Hey Nathan, if you're still here, have you considered threaded comments where a commenter can respond directly below another commenter's comments? Not sure if blogger.com does them or not, but it might be interesting if a little messy looking.
Seems so self-explanatory, but I guess to some, it's not.