The overdue death of Blogs

A furious debate is raging in the annals of the distinguished publication Proceedings in Syntactical Taxonomy (hereafter PiST). Naturally enough I have been invited, if not cajoled into providing some illumination and final settlement of a knotty problem and I am content to provide readers of these pages with a limited but sufficiently adequate brief preview. (For the full rendition please see the upcoming PiST Vol LXVI, 4, 2009).

The divergence in opinion hinges on the neonym 'weblog' and its' even more disturbing abbreviation 'blog'. (regular readers will be keenly aware of my visceral aversion to the latter).

In the red corner sit the linguistic evolutionists led by Stieglitz and (to a more ambiguous extent) Cohn. Their argument will be familiar to most educated readers but suffice it to say that they view language as organic and evolving. Hence words emerge and, through the etymological selection (or otherwise) of users, employed and eventually discarded as no longer fit for purpose. They claim that such tendencies have been noted since the eminent Dr Johnson first mooted the possibility in the 17th century and point to the stark number of words listed in his path finding dictionary that are no longer in 'common' usage.

In the case of 'weblog' they note the emergence of the 'world-wide web' and the concomitant arising of personal reflections such as these very pages. The elision between 'web' and 'log' is seen as a natural adaptation to technological imperatives and the need to categorise and thus distinguish types of website. Hence 'weblog' erupts upon the scene as a 'natural convenience' in taxonomic innovation and its widespread acceptance and adoption 'proves' its evolutionary success. This term, then, will endure until such a time as the linguistic landscape 'selects' other mutations to prosper and eventually 'replace' it. This somewhat determinist view even hints that the emergence of such terms is inevitable as the environment selects and discards with dispassion. There is nothing we can do. One might even contemplate the 'Selfish Meme', if you will excuse a brief detour into jollity (with apologies to Professor Dawkins).

In the blue corner sit the neo-traditionalists and a loose umbrella group of schismatic orthodoxists, led in no small way by Shriver and von Unterfeld, with a tentative nod to Grelm. Here, the emergence of this term is seen as an etymological failure of pre-existing words to capture the zeitgeist with its endless thirst for novelty. So 'memory lapse' blinds us to perfectly adequate pre-terminous synonyms while 'pop culture' (and its ghastly insistence for predigested stripped-down simplicity) invents a disturbing neology of increasing vacuity and trite content.

Such tendencies inevitably ignore the rich and complex ancestry of ancient and current terminology, conflating Graeco-Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Normandic and even Low Dutch predeterminants, thus dangerously diluting the 'pedigree' of our language into an eclectic rag-bag devoid of historicity. Such neologisms should therefore be dismissed out of hand, and an urgent search be mounted to reclaim ancient syntax for a worthy restoration into everyday usage, once acceptance has been agreed and approved by notable experts. We must not permit 'language creep' to be driven by unfettered multimedia, such as the hideous yet omnipresent MTV. The purity of the language must be preserved at all costs before we descend into a guttural pit of chaos and adumbrate anarchy, no less. A rigorously bold camp, methinks at length.

Of course these limited 'thumbnail' sketches do scant justice to the textual complexity of these two positions (if positions they are) yet suffice it to say that few would quibble with my overarching proximity to such entrenched and polarised views.

So now let us hurry without further ado to my ruling that should unite all linguists under a common banner and permit a thorough remedial review of current emergent trends. Should this become known as "Hegenious' Law" then I shall piously and humbly accept the distinction. That, dear reader, is entirely up to you in the efficacy of your lobbying of the appropriate authorities.

While I am inherently drawn towards the propriety of the conservative camp (as I prefer to call them) the claims of the evolutionists bear some small merit. However, where both camps fail is their common neglect of the crucial concepts of verbal aesthetics and onomatopoeia.

I am sure that all fastidious logodaedali will recoil in horror at the sheer ugliness of the word Weblog. It really is ghastly, and its appalling cousin Blog triply so. Web-log, the silent hyphen screaming in embarrassment at its inclusion, the terminal 'g' tortured out of position by its conjunction to 'bl', a co-proximity never before ventured without grief (see Katana & Hooting on this for further insight). We must reject such dire malignancies out of pure aesthetic duty. It is simply as crucial as that.

Add to this the critical onomatopoeic dimension then we have terms that inexorably sound like the bubbling of some frightful primeval tar pit. If you will excuse an illuminating levity, "Blog, Bloop, Blog, Gloop, Weblog" they go, emitting noxious connotations not totally dissimilar to the toxic gases associated with such distressing morasses. And with similar results, poisoning the streams of language with noisome derivatives that scandalise the screeds of old. The 3 Witches of Macbeth and even the Bard of Avon himself would stand aghast.

Hence all 'new' terms must satisfy the dual tests of aesthetic and onomatopoeic sensitivity. Nothing else will do.

Thus my bold approach in no small measure synthesises the salient and beneficial aspects of both protagonists positions into an indisputable way forward. I do not stand, Canute-like, against the rising tide of new terminology, I only insist that it is monitored and controlled under a set of stringent criteria.

In urging the immediate execution and obliteration of the terms Weblog and Blog I even go so far as to tentatively suggest a viable replacement, namely Personal Ruminations In Cyberspace (or PRIC, for the acronymically-minded). This most suitable neologism shows robust etymological roots with a notable bow to the vitality of Anglo-Saxon semantics of royalty, together with a lineage dating back to Beowulf, if not beyond. In implicitly critiquing the evolutionist stance I find myself pioneering an adaptation of Intelligent Design, but with the crucial distinction that the Deity delegates the development of language to a panel of highly-educated and intelligent people, such as those who gather around campfires of enlightenment in the deep dark forest of ignorance. (Such as this PRIC).

Of course this short sketch fails to cover the full complexity of my compelling exegesis (see PiST Op Cit), but, suffice it to say that by posting here I have unleashed a verbal revolution of the most far-reaching consequences that shall be reverently discussed down the centuries. Only due modesty prevents me from adding more.