On "plogging"...

Posted August 27, 2003 9:06 PM.

There seems to be a current obsession with the language of weblogging coursing through print. First things first we got Technobabble in The Times being all random, and now we have "ploggers" (from the Guardian's Backbencher e-mail):

Readers who have yet to succumb to the blogging craze sweeping Westminster (© all leftwing thinktanks) should pay heed to the experience of Richard Allan (Lib Dem, Sheffield Hallam), a blogger - or "plogger", as the political variety now seem to be known. Richard, who has announced his intention to stand down at the next election, was asked how it felt to be a "blogging elected representative".

"My answer, based on my experience to date, is that a blog is like a dog," Richard mused. "It needs a certain amount of care every day. This is time consuming and can feel like a bit of a drag when you are busy. But you know that without the regular walks and feeding then the dog/blog will become unhealthy. And for all that you occasionally moan about the demands of your faithful friend, you become so attached that you would not enjoy life without half so much without it."

I can't quite figure the whole thing out. I mean firstly, no one seems to like the word 'blog' anyway except the press. Everyone else seems to find it really ugly or vaguely stupid. Movable Type no longer use it at all, and various long-term luminaries have publically regretted ever hearing or using the word in the first place. And as to all these other neologisms... I just don't get why the press gets all excited about all those little bits of shorthand - they're (at best) only tongue-in-cheek. Very few people take them in any way seriously. I'm finding it increasingly difficult to tell whether these journalists are in on the joke or whether they're just looking for something easy to take pot-shots at...

Comments

Please stay on-topic, informative and polite. I reserve the right to remove comments for whatever vague capricious reasons seem reasonable at the time.

I whole heartedly concur.

I now run an e-zine and a personal journal. Neither are Blogs but both are powered by Movable Type

→ Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at August 28, 2003 12:18 AM

I disagree. I quite like the word "blog", especially as a verb. When I post stuff to my website, I'm definitely blogging, not weblogging, or journalling, or writing for my e-zine. My blog isn't a personal journal all the time; sometimes it's a list of links and commentary about stuff that's going on on the web at the moment -- literally, a log of my web surfing, hence the highly appropriate name.

On the other hand, I've always hated words that just have an "e" in front of them (e-zine, e-mail, e-commerce) since they strike me as "horseless carriage" type words -- backward looking, rather than giving this new phenomenon a different and properly descriptive name. E-mail and e-commerce are here to stay, I guess, but I wish e-zine would die a death.

→ Posted by: Seldo at August 28, 2003 1:11 AM

hmmm, if MT no longer use the word then why does TypePad give you the option to host your site at blogs.com?

But yeah blog is an awful word, I avoid it as best possible. Weblog is the simplest way out, but it leaves the contraction out in the running. I'm sensing a split between some the styles, diaries vs. indie publishers. Somehow I think the blog handle will stick to one of them, probably the diaries. The indie publishers will look to squeeze between the stigma of dot com boom resonating web zines and diary resonating blogs. We'll find out soon enough.

→ Posted by: Abe at August 28, 2003 6:32 AM

I like "blog" precisely *because* it's a bit clunky and amateur-sounding. "Weblog" sounds a tad too earnest, too high-minded, too public-service, for the sort of nonsense that I mostly muck around with.

(Self-deprecating aside: If I'm talking with other bloggers, then I'll say "blog". If I'm trying to justify what I do to someone who has barely/never heard of the medium, then I find myself saying "weblog". Funny, that...)

Simply put: Blog = Punk. Weblog = New Wave.

→ Posted by: mike at August 28, 2003 8:57 AM

Betcha any money (well, fifty p) that those who object too strongly to 'blog' are too pompous for their own good anyway.

Or want to appear all grown up and 'sophisticated'.

→ Posted by: Martin Wisse at August 28, 2003 2:52 PM

"Simply put: Blog = Punk. Weblog = New Wave."

lol, so what equals Hardcore?

→ Posted by: Abe at August 28, 2003 6:54 PM

I blog therefore I am.

→ Posted by: Stu at August 28, 2003 11:02 PM

Hmm. The dog analogy is a bit inaccurate. We care for dogs. We even learn to love animals, while most of us will never come to love our blogs.

I think of a blog as the modern equivalent of the Tamagotchi. Cheap, irrelevant fun. If the Tamagotchi died because of abuse, you just start over again. (Barbelith reborn as Plasticbag?)

→ Posted by: tim at August 29, 2003 6:41 AM

You know - to be honest - I don't know what I'd do if plasticbag.org died. All of barbelith's stuff came with me when I moved - starting from scratch would be... pretty extreme... I'm not sure I could do that again...

→ Posted by: Tom Coates at August 29, 2003 9:44 AM

Want to add your opinion?