It’s a blog post, not a freakin’ blog
13 Nov 2008 | Filed Under: Crankypants + Interpipes
For the record, and for the benefit of people who really should know better - namely, people with blogs:
- The container is a blog.
- The entries held within it are blog posts.
- That’s it. It’s pretty simple.
Please stop inviting people to read your “latest blog.” It makes you sound like a moron and makes the pedants among us want to start pulling teeth. With pliers.
Thank you.
Today’s post sponsored by six bloggers, two “social media specialists,” one journalist, and by the letters P, M and T.
Suzy Byrne says:
Ah gwan tell us what a ’social media specialist’ really is!!! I’m dying to know!
Thursday, 13 November, 2008, 12:33 amMichael Flanagan says:
I also hate this, but never enough to write a blog about it.
Oh yes, I went there. ^_^
Thursday, 13 November, 2008, 12:33 amSabrina Dent says:
Dear Suzy:
Fucked if I know.
Dear Mick:
You were beaten to the punch.
Love,
Thursday, 13 November, 2008, 12:36 amSabrina
fustar says:
It grates on my ears & eyes (ouch) too. Like something my ma would say. She who uses the terms internet, email and facebook completely interchangeably.
Anyway, “blog” (I’ve always thought) is a pretty ugly and lumpy word - even without mis-use.
Blog.
Blog.
Blog.
See what I mean?
Thursday, 13 November, 2008, 12:48 amSabrina Dent says:
Fustar, yes totally. I try to be patient with people who are not so conversant in all things interwebs, but I do have to restrain myself from attempting to explain that while it is indeed “the internet” it is not “the email” or “the Facebook.”
Arrrrgh….
Thursday, 13 November, 2008, 12:54 amfustar says:
Well you’re also dealing with the Irish tendency (and it comes straight from our “native tongue”) to put “the” before all nouns. As in “Isn’t the email marvelous, altogether?” or “I see you’re big into the facebook now!”
My wife (English) finds it priceless.
Thursday, 13 November, 2008, 1:10 ammartin says:
Ah (and I know many of your regular readers will contradict me if I’m wrong), but free use of the definite article is a feature of Irish (and to a lesser extent, Scots) English
So to your USian ears, ‘the email’ is wrong. But not to mine. And as I’m after seeing you increasingly using Irish idiom in your tweets, I’m surprised you’re so harsh on the usage.
Thursday, 13 November, 2008, 1:11 amPhil says:
i blame the myspace.
Thursday, 13 November, 2008, 1:31 amDamien Mulley » Blog Archive » Fluffy Links - Thursday November 13th 2008 says:
[...] of which, Sabrina’s latest blog cracks me [...]
Thursday, 13 November, 2008, 6:40 amPrimal Sneeze says:
I blame it on the Price Watch column in the Irish Times that invites readers with opinions to “write, blog or text”.
I once wrote a letter to the editor. Therefore I am a journalist?
Thursday, 13 November, 2008, 8:03 amSteph says:
Nicely said.
Thursday, 13 November, 2008, 9:17 amSabrina Dent says:
Fustar and Martin, I absolutely accept that it’s an Irish grammatical construction and thus entirely appropriate.*My* mother, however, is neither Irish nor in Ireland and she says both of those things.
In other words, she is just the old.
Thursday, 13 November, 2008, 9:53 amCatherine says:
Primal - yes! There’s always a link to the blog at the bottom of the print column each week prefixed “Blog on here” - wtf does that even mean?!
This has been bugging me for ages, Sabrina, well tackled.
Thursday, 13 November, 2008, 10:01 amcathy says:
Thank you for that post! Can I respectfully request membership of the Association of Pedantic Bloggers?
Fustar - I agree about the hideousness of the word, compounded by a near-impossility to get it understood when you don’t use “write” in the same sentence: I study blogs. You study what?
Thursday, 13 November, 2008, 10:17 amKatherine says:
What about when people refer to comments as posts, as in, “If you even read my last post above, you’d know what I meant”!
Thursday, 13 November, 2008, 10:18 amKatie Conway says:
Priceless! Brought to you by the letters…
Thanks for cheering up may day.
Thursday, 13 November, 2008, 10:29 amGreen Ink says:
Turgon on Slugger does this all the time. It is the fucking annoying.
Thursday, 13 November, 2008, 10:50 amRussell McQuillan says:
I often hear my mother asking my younger Brother , Are you on the Bebo ?
Thursday, 13 November, 2008, 11:25 amDarragh says:
On the parental side, my mother frequently enquires now about my blobbing, if I’m on the blob and whether I could show my relatives the blob that I’m on.
Try as I might to explain…
But yes, sign me up for pedantic bloggers too. Or blobbers. Whatever.
Thursday, 13 November, 2008, 11:32 amDarragh says:
“Are you on the Bebo?”
I wonder if that’s because the perception among a non net generation is that it’s just another form of “de telly” or “de wireless”?
In the newspapers
On the television
On the radio
On the internet/blogs/facebook/bebo
I must ask my mother, who rang me to tell me that my face were coming to Dublin so I could get a job.
Thursday, 13 November, 2008, 11:36 amRussell McQuillan says:
very interesting, I guess it stems from the old saying, are you on the telephone to ask, Do you have a phone.
Or my Rev often esquires when trying to find out someones email address, Are you on the computer at home ?
Thursday, 13 November, 2008, 11:38 amTheChrisD says:
I’m glad I never have to worry about it since I class all my blog posts as “rants”, so all I have to say is “Read my latest rant”.
The only place you find the word blog on my site is in the navbar - since calling it rants might make it harder to understand.
Or would it…?
* runs off and changes *
Thursday, 13 November, 2008, 11:43 amCiara Crossan says:
Oh, How you make me laugh. The letters P, M and T.
Thursday, 13 November, 2008, 11:47 amSo I should come bearing chocolate when I visit later?
….hopefully your mail parcels that I deliver will cheer you up.
Love,
Your Postmistress
(ooh! that sounds quite naughty, doesn’t it?!)
x.
Stewart Curry says:
Can you tell my dad he doesn’t need to defraggle his hard drive?
Thursday, 13 November, 2008, 12:50 pmSean says:
The one that gets me is “going into” websites/things on the internet.
“I went into google and searched for Tractor tyres”
Thursday, 13 November, 2008, 1:24 pm“When I went into facebook I noticed that all of my friends have red hair”
Ann Donnelly says:
As I always say — people read a little about something, pick up some buzz words, and then they are experts. Feels good to vent a little. Thanks Sabrina for saying what we were all feeling! Ann
Thursday, 13 November, 2008, 1:30 pmDonncha O Caoimh says:
Glad I’m not the only one. Every time I hear someone say that I want to shake them and knock some sense into them!
Thursday, 13 November, 2008, 2:11 pmmartinb says:
Your mother wouldn’t *be* the old; she would *have* the old (on her) an bhfuil?
Now the thing that *really* bugs me is “logging onto” a site. BBC are particularly bad with that usage. No, unless you’re actually providing username/password, you’re merely visiting.
Thursday, 13 November, 2008, 5:54 pmGavin says:
I say “the Facebook” on purpose… lol I find it rather funny.
Thursday, 13 November, 2008, 11:43 pmPrimal Sneeze says:
Oh, I have another one: “Do you have the Internet*?”, meaning do you have a broadband service.
* With a small I of course. We master pedants will only use “internet”, with a lower case I, to denote any set of two or more connected networks.
Friday, 14 November, 2008, 6:19 amDeborah says:
LOL, love it! :) “Blog site” gets to me too!
Friday, 14 November, 2008, 6:25 pmRory says:
Re pet language hates, why in god’s name do we make up garbage names in Irish for something that is a new invention?
Idirghréasán
Apparently this is the new Irish word for the internet ?????
Why? Is internet not good enough?
Though there is now a great opportunity to have a competition to name the word that will be blog in Irish. A few suggestions:
Blogaéiocht
Bléagheadgoaéigí
An Blóg
spideoriacht
Any others?
Friday, 14 November, 2008, 7:19 pmmartinb says:
I remember Sorley Maclean telling of a time when people said that (Scots) Gaelic would be a relevant modern language when it had a word for Spaghetti. To which he replied that he was looking forward to hearing the English word for it.
In a similar (yet strangely opposite) vein: Irish (and Gaelic) should worry about a native idiom for Internet when they improve upon Gaelicised-Anglified Greek for Television.
An fear seo: telebhisean agus rèidio
Friday, 14 November, 2008, 8:42 pmSean O' Grady says:
@Michael Flanagan you’re right up there maverick-wise with the likes of John McCain
Saturday, 15 November, 2008, 1:47 amProf. Facebook says:
[...] recent blog post (or as Sabrina Dent would say, a blog) by Kristen Osenga (guest blogger at the legal group blog Concurring Opinions) contains quite a few [...]
Friday, 21 November, 2008, 12:02 am