Ever since that day long ago when someone looked at a website that had entries organized in list form added to sequentially that recorded places online that the creator of said site had found interesting interspersed with wry observations and anecdotes about their life and declared that this was a log of the web, or weblog, or what the hell, let’s call it a blog, many has sighed and cursed that someone for coming up with such a stupid name. Much in the way comics aficionados curse one Igor Goldkind for, in the early 1990s as publicity bod for Fleetway, popularising the term “graphic novel” to describe something that, while certainly graphic, was not really a novel. But we got used to it, and it was certainly better than the using the term “comic” to describe Maus, at least to civilians.
But I, as ever, digress. The main criticism I’ve seen against the word blog was that it was an ugly word, a grotesque utterance that just sounded silly. As someone who quite liked the earthy clunk of the word I never really understood this until I realised most of the people expressing this distaste were Americans and accents don’t travel well online. To them a blog is a “blaaawwwg” so to blog is somewhat akin to what a student does after a rather hectic party. You can see their point.
I think the word can be reclaimed but only once the ex-colonials learn how to say it properly. Of course I have no idea how to phonetically write the word “blog” so that the Yanks don’t see it as “blaaaawwwg”. I would say it rhymes with “clog” but I can’t be sure they don’t pronounce that “claawwwg”. So here, then, is an audio guide: How to say “blog”, a teeny little mp3 that will hopefully have a disproportionate effect.
Of course correct pronunciation doesn’t excuse use of the word “blogosphere”, or “blaaawwwggaaaawwwsppaaaaaiiioorrr” as I fear it’s probably more commonly known over there.
Careful: not all American accents are Southern drawls, just as not all British accents are Cockney sparras.
Here in California it’s probably most often “blaag”, which is still a little too sheepy for me.
hahaha !
“graphic novel” is properly pronounced “long comic”, or “comic” for short. “blog” is properly pronounced “weblog” or “website”.
Hmmph.
James: The word should sound like the satisfying clunk of a new car door closing. Blaag, along with blawg, blarg and even, should it actually occur, blorrgh are more the sound an old car door makes on route to the clunk. They need oiling.
Th Southern variety is just the most entertaining, but they all have issues.
Maybe you could get the Beeb to include “blog” in their next regional accents survey - more interesting than asking people for another word for female parent. weblog sounds like frog croak to me.
can how do you say?
Guaranteed to make you cringe.
Thanks for that, dglp. I feel a mashup coming on…
Looks like you were ahead of the curve again. This from the Beeb news site, w. ref to Robert Mogwe:
“Moog was not alone in having a name people couldn’t pronounce properly. People called H�kon, Jiye, Michi, Elissa, Asa, Nara and Laszlo have each written on the web about going through life with people not knowing how to say their names. Some have resorted to publishing MP3 files of the correct pronunciation.”
link
The article complicates matters with this line:
For Moog should not have rhymed with “fugue”. It’s pronounced “Mogue”.
I pronounce one of the quoted words as “fewg” (e.g. Rbert Fewg?) or perhaps ‘fug’ (Robt. Mug?), and the other as Mogway, as in Robt. Moggy and Robert Mogwabe. Certainly none of these is close to “Moag” - the way I’ve always pronounced the name.
The lack of consistency here makes me think we’re needing an audio thesaurus right away. As a companion to UrbanDictionary.com.
Oops. Typo’s.
1. Hakon (ish)
2. Mogue as similar to Morgue?
3. (e.g. Robert Mewg?)
How to:
build a blawg engine in 15 minutes with Ruby on Rails.
Very funny, and quite a delight. Blawg. Indeed.
I remember that - it is quite genius in a mad Californian scientist kinda way. It’s probably what set me off on this whole thing, I think.
Being a theremin “player” (ie. just about) and with a couple of theremin DVDs with Bob Moog’s name spoken on them, I’d write the pronunciation of his name as ‘Moge’, hard ‘g’, rhymes with vogue. Or Moag, perhaps, with ‘oa’ as in ‘boat’. Hm.
‘Blog’ has infiltrated the non-english speaking world. Even those of the ex-colonials who weren’t english speaking! And since many cultures don’t have localized technical terms, most people say it in Cambodia like ‘bloc’. Or alternately, ‘web-side’.
There’s been some discussion about using Sanskrit or Pali components to create new terms, but the intersection of politics and language can be a tricky one.
More fun at http://www.khmeros.info
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/globalvoices/-/world/east-asia/cambodia/
BTW @ local speeds, Pete Radio takes about 1 hour to download, sometimes an hour and a half. How I miss high bandwidth…
To make things more confusing, some lawyers online have started using “blawg” (spelled thus) to mean “a weblog about legal matters.” (What would you call a weblog about logging?) The other cute coinage I can’t stand is “bleg”: to beg for something (donations, prose, etc.) for/via your blog. Will my generation be remembered for wasting all our time on this shit?