Blog Off

When sending out scatter-fire email to all my contacts to point out that there was another slew of news from the kayak trip I mentioned – merely in passing – that the word ‘blog’ caused me pain, actually offended me, clanked with its ugliness and generally could do with a replacement. I also noted that – like my palpable disliking of the phrase ‘cold cuts’ – I realised that it was illogical to dislike what was a perfectly serviceable and descriptive word for no real reason.

Well, here’s a surprise, it seems that there’s much more interest in talking about the origins of the word ‘blog’ and suggesting alternatives than in any nonsense about kayaking. More interest even than in updates on the mackerel situation; (the latter a poor subject as assiduous readers might have noticed from the lack of my promised mackerel specific entries; it’s been a really bad year for them – I’ve caught one, one measly little brisling-sized enfant of a mackerel, and everybody else out fishing reports a similar lack of fish).

So, there has been a flurry of emails on the blog (and I have to point out that accusations of the blog-o-sphere being ultimately self referential to the point of parody is being borne out by this experience). Thank you to those who pointed out that blog is from an editing of and elsion of letters in web log. That doesn’t make it any better. On that logic I could come up with an apposite word through roughly the same process performed on the words blog’s hit.

Thanks too for those – Gerry, in the forefront, and Rory running him hard – who suggested coining my own word. Klog for a kayak log, perhaps. Or Clog for circumnavigation log and because the output tends to do same to people’s inboxes.

I’m tempted, in that case to go back to the nautical roots of the log and combine ship’s log into a ‘slog.’

Or perhaps most accurately I could just add the F-word to denote the weather to my log to get a ‘flog.’ As in what one does to a dead horse. This entry very neatly proving its own aptness.

Winds due to moderate tomorrow so should be able to de-Clifden-ate myself and use up energy paddling again. If I don’t escape soon could end up being Dingled again. I found a very nice vintage Martin guitar in a session last night and plucked and strummed a couple of numbers. And on that basis have been asked along to another session to play tonight; that way lies employment. It’s time to blogger off and get some coffee.