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Question Of The Day – What To Call An Argument Between Two Bloggers?

Uber Law Blogger Eugene Volokh is contemplating the various terms we use to describe the process we call blogging. He notes that if you look back on other written records, such as a “ship’s log” something written into the record has been traditionally called an “entry”. I refer to a “blog entry” as either an article or post. In five years, I don’t recall using the term “entry”. It seems so… formal, and doesn’t feel right for what I do.

I find it interesting, that we are watching the creation of a whole new lexicon that revolves around a new technology. A number of years back, my band was practicing at an old semi-abandoned farmhouse that had been in my guitarists family for over a century, but had seen little use in many years. After practice, we were thumbing through some old books, some more the 50 years old. Two that caught my attention were among the oldest on the shelf, dating back to 1910-ish. They were first hand accounts describing the joy of owning an automobile, a very rare thing in the day. The books described not only the experiences of owning and driving the at-the-time unique machines, but also covered the technologies involve in the “gasoline powered internal combustion engine”, but also described various roadside repairs, which was vital knowledge as there were very few if any repair facilities, except maybe in the largest cities. There were so many terms for things we now include in our daily lexicon that simply didn’t exist in the day. There was no “gas station” or repair shop” as we know it. The term “car” appeared nowhere in either of the books – if you owned an automobile, you were called an “automobilist”.

Like that period, we are seeing new terms, or the adaptation of existing terms, that accommodate to the emergence of new technologies. My favorites:

Blogiversary – the anniversary of a blog publication (mine is January5, 2005).

Blog-Pal – a friendship that exists strictly through communication via blogs. See “pen-pal” for reference.

And my favorite…

The blargument!!!!