Old Lawyers Have Web Logs
A Georgia Lawyer has firmly resolved from the top down in his office to rid it of jargon.
First to go: Blawg. No more emails or comments with it spelled that way. There are enough problems explaining what a web log is to someone over 40 as it is. No need to make it worse.Okay, will everybody stop calling their weblog, or blog, or blawg anything other than a web log, just to keep the old Georgia Dawg happy? Don't think so.
Blawg is a perfectly acceptable word formation for a law blog. If you don't like it, don't use it. But those who do might find it helps communicate the thought. Interestingly, the word blawg is pronounced the same as the word blog, so there is absolutely no confusion in oral communication. In the written word, blawg is easily intelligible and conveys additional meaning to readers and to search engines.
Not long ago, language police posing as language lovers derided the word blog, and now there are those who insist that real lawyers have blogs, not blawgs. Today, blog is in the dictionary and before these prescriptivists have stopped grumbling so will be the word blawg, which now has almost two million references on Google. So, if you encounter someone who doesn't know what blawg means, kindly tell them to google it. And if they don't know what you mean by google it, tell them it's jargon for search for information on the Web.
Update: Linguists Mark Liberman and Benjamin Zimmer each wrote thoughful posts on Language Log discussing the "portmanteau" or "sandwich word" blawg. Zimmer discusses the phonology of blawg and blog.
See also: Who let the blawgs out?
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