|
Well here we are then
It seems I've been dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century and asked to "blog". Or "do a blog". I never know whether it's a verb or a noun, or indeed if anyone still cares about the way our language is mangled. "Web log" is bad enough but shortening that to "blog" seems very ambiguous to me.
What if I wanted to keep a record of ale-houses I've been to (logically a "pub log") and then it fell prey to the same missing first syllable? Or perhaps a young lady might want to keep notes on young men she has known - might that also be shortened by dropping "kno"? She and her friends might think very differently of me if they heard I too had a blog. They'd want to ask my opinion about shoes. Eeyuw.
The biggest problem I ever encounter with technical stuff is that there either aren't enough words to cover it, or else people shorten and abbreviate and end up talking at crossed purposes. If someone ever says "every schoolboy knows..." it's a sure sign that there are several different things going on and many people are not taking the time to be clear about which effect is which. You might say "Why should I care?" but it can be important. Honest.
To give an example, anyone who knows me will know I quite like motorcycles. They do several interesting things, two of which are "weave" and "flutter".
|
