I couldn't go to sleep until I worked this out. And perhaps I have figured out how to post this. Here goes:
A blog (a contraction of the term "web log")[1] is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.
Web + log = weblog = we + blog = blog.
I wonder if this is the true derivation of the term blog. Personally I think it was coined by the following combination of words with more definitive implications.
“'Blah' dates back to 1918. That first 1918 citation is from a book called Wine, Women and War – A Diary of Disillusionment.
The author Howard Vincent O’Brien writes about his experience in the First World War and seems to use the word blah quite a few times.
He meant “talk” but one wonders if he had the blahs since his subtitle mentions disillusionment and he published the book anonymously." (Podictionary)
There are other definitions which have over the years evolved into more negative meanings. I will stick with the original definition, talk.
“Blah, blah blah” adv. And so on; et cetera. (The Free Dictionary by Farlex)
Lots of talk; much talk.
Slog: v.i to plod heavily, to work hard (at something)
This reminds me of...
Shlog: german, verb. (schlagen): to hit. (Not the Urban Dictionary’s definition which is just nasty! Although, there are times when I feel that I have been beaten that way.)
yiddish dictionary .... Gai shlog dein kup en vant! or Gay shlog dein kup en vant! - Go bang your head against the wall!
An analogous meaning could be that a person's mind has become senile.
This is a telling use of speech, especially in my definition of blog.
MY conclusion is that blog (verb) is a neologism comprised of these two words - blah and slog
Blog = Blah + Slog = blahslog. The definition would be: struggling through the talk.
Inferences include: I am beating my half senile old head against the wall trying to work at all of this talk and come up with my own discourse. (I thought I would toss in that word for David.) Sometimes feeling as if someone is beating me about the head with a nasty sock weighted down with…oh the imagery is painful!
Don’t laugh! Do you know how much time I spent on the internet looking up words to come up with this drivel?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
My sympathies indeed. But we have here also an example of the effect a framing narrative can have on experience. If blog is derived from a shloging drudgery, you have a less pleasant experience than if it derives from a log: "to enter into a log book," 1823, from logbook "daily record of a ship's speed, progress, etc." (1679), which is so called because wooden floats were used to measure a ship's speed.
ReplyDelete