Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Blogging

Ironically, "blog" is not in the blogspot dictionary. If I write "blog" in a post and use its spellcheck, it's considered a mistake, and flog, bloc, bloke and some real doozies are suggested.

"Blog" isn't in The Concise Oxford Dictionary, Ninth Edition, 1995 either. I guess blogging may not have been going on when it was edited.

But since then an entire vocabulary has developed. See pearlies of wisdom: All Roads Lead Back to You...Blog!. It's missing an important one, blogaholic, those of us who rush to the computer the minute we get home for another "fix." Those of us who suddenly realize that hours have passed us by while we were busy posting to a handful of "visitors," or worse. Those of us who make time to "surf" and "hit" blogs galore but can't find the time to pick up the phone to call family and friends.

OK, I still say it's better than Freecell, my previous addiction.

3 comments:

Ezzie said...

I've always found it funny that most blog words aren't in their spellcheck. And as for the time we spend... but it's so interesting!!

Batya said...

the spellcheck is one of the worst things about blogger

I see a spellcheck on the google bar someone put up, and maybe I'll try it next time.

YMedad said...

Not in a dictionary doesn't mean it isn't a word. And then there's always this word: Blogorrhea -A portmanteau of "blog" and "logorrhea", meaning excessive and/or incoherent talkativeness in a weblog.

But as for the basics, here's a good definition I found: A weblog, or *blog, is a frequently updated website consisting of dated entries arranged in reverse chronological order so the most recent post appears first (see temporal ordering). Typically, weblogs are published by individuals and their style is personal and informal. Weblogs first appeared in the mid-1990s, becoming popular as simple and free publishing tools became available towards the turn of the century.

And this is important to know: Blogs took off in 1999 after blog development applications such as Pitas, Blogger and GrokSoup were released. The template-based software made it easy to create an online blog and continuously add entries without having to write the pages in HTML. Blog hosting services make it even easier to create a blog. All the development is done through the browser, and no software downloads are required.