Who You Callin' Moron?

Jonathan G. Stein is relatively new to blogging at The Practice, which he launched earlier this year. Like many bloggers, he's using his newfound blog to tell other lawyers how to communicate effectively.

Regarding the term blawg, and not blog. People who made up the term blawg are, in my opinion, MORONS. Let me see if I can explain why. There is a word in the language that defines something. (Blog, a web-based writing tool, short for web log.) An attorney comes along and thinks it would be cute to spell it bLAWg and pronounce it the same way. Now, you have two different words that sound the same. Okay, we have that with there, there and they’re. I get it. But, in this case, the second spelling only serves one purpose: to separate out lawyer blogs from the other blogs. It comes across as snobby.

Jonathan might have missed the intelligent discussion of this neologism, blawg, a portmanteau or sandwich word that was coined by Denise Howell in early 2002.

But the position I find most persuasive, in this regard, was taken by another personal injury lawyer, Norman Gregory Fernandez, who wrote recently, "Do you know what blawg means?"

I have been blogging for a few months now and I’m really enjoying it. I not only enjoy writing legal articles, but also articles related to motorcycle safety, and motorcycle ride reports.

I recently read a discussion about the term “Blawg.” The term Blawg, was coined by a lawyer who was writing about legal issues. Hence the term Blawg was born and is used to describe a law related Blog.

I know the term Blawg is not generally recognized on the Internet at this time for what it is; a law related Blawg. However, I have decided to embrace the term and add it to the name of my Blog. My Blog will officially now be known as "Biker and Motorcycle Lawyer Blog / Blawg."

In researching the term “Blawg,” I found what is “the mother of all Blawg sites.” You can check out that site by clicking here now.

My Blog is listed as "Biker Law Blog" on this site.

If you want to gain insight into the legal world, this would be a good place to start. I have never seen so many lawyers, law professors, and other legal professionals all featured on one location.

I look forward to writing many articles in the years to come.

So, which of these law bloggers comes across as snobby?

Update: Welcome blog readers arriving from this link on The Practice.

I posted a comment in reply to that post, which Jonathan Stein apparently removed. That is his prerogative. Here's what I wrote in that comment:

Jonathan, you wrote: Example: I was recently written up in the Sacramento Business Journal about my personal injury blog. How did they get my name? The author searched "sacramento blog" and mine came up. If I called my blog a "blawg," it never would have come up.

Not so.

Google: employment blog

Find: George's Employment Blawg

You also wrote: No one outside of the legal profession knows the word blawg. So, if you want people to be able to find your blog, you need to call it what they call it: a blog.

Perhaps Kevin O'Keefe would pipe in and tell us how he uses the word "blawg" on his weblog and in tags to increase the exposure of his blog.

[Update: Kevin O'Keefe addresses the issue again on his blog, Real Lawyers Have Blogs.]

See also: "The gospel of blawging" an article in the Des Moines Business Record Online dated November 5, 2006, featuring Iowa lawyers and bloggers Rush Nigut and Brett Trout.

[Update: Rush Nigut says Blog or Blawg: It's All Good]

Here's just a bit of what was written in that non-legal business journal:

Nigut said there have been judges who have cited blawgs in their decisions, showing just how much respect many are giving to blawgs.

"Blawgs are getting more authority," he said.

An added benefit of blawging is its low cost. Trout uses a free service to publish his blog, and Nigut uses a service with some extra features that only costs a little over $100 a year.

"You can't get that type of marketing for that price any other way," Trout said.

Posted by: Ed. | November 21, 2006 at 08:45 AM

For greater clarity, this post does not suggest that Jonathan is snobby because he doesn't think we should use the word blawg, as he misinterprets my point. It just raises a question whether the tone of a blogger's writing might have a lot more to do with "coming across as snobby" than whether or not a law blogger uses the word blawg to differentiate a blog as being law-related.

Update January 7, 2007: For a thoughtful discussion of law blogs, see also the recent blog post on Ben Cowgill's Legal Ethics Newsletter headlined "Law-related blogs: Following in the footsteps of Thomas Jefferson" in which Ben Cowgill refers to this article in the Lexington Herald-Leader:

Lawyers take legal debates online
'BLAWGS' GIVE PERIODICAL DISCUSSIONS DAILY PLAY