Bloggers
I asked a few days ago when mainstream media like the Washington Post would stop putting "blogs" in quotation marks. Well, my rhetorical question may have been heard in High Places. Today's White House Briefing column by Dan Froomkin in the Washington Post mentions bloggers without quotation marks:
I'll round up the coverage of what was in last night's State of the Union in just a minute. But first, a look at what the various news stories, analyses, pundits and bloggers are saying was notably missing.
Comments
If "blog" sounded like an actual word, the mainstream media and populace would be far more likely to remove the quotation marks. My guess is that Froomkin, besides having a weblog of his own and being familiar with the jargon, is willing to use "bloggers" without quotation marks, because it looks and sounds a bit more like something other than onomatopoeic slang for vomiting.
The best way to get the quotation marks removed by the mainstream is for "webloggers" or "webjournalors" to start using nomenclature that communicates meaning to folks outside the clique. Most of the public and press could live with and understand "weblogs." Why not go back to that more meaningful and less revolting terminology?
This is, of course, a pet peeve of mine. See, Does Blog Jargon Turn Off Outsiders? http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/ethicalesq/2003/10/01#a307 .
Posted by: David Giacalone | January 21, 2004 5:27 PM
p.s. I just discovered that I mistook Dan Froomkin for Prof. Michael Froomkin. My apologies to both of them.
Posted by: David Giacalone | January 21, 2004 5:44 PM