Maybe “Blog” Isn’t So Bad After All

by Linda Bergeron

Here’s an if-then question, folks. If the catch phrase blog comes from the miniaturization of the phrase Web Log, then let us imagine that the original phrase coined had been, instead, any of the following: Web Journal, Web Annal, Web Record, or Web Chronicle.

If you use your brain while twisting your lips around a bit you can see immediately that trying to let something like bbb-chronicle drop out of your mouth simply does not work, so that one could be elim-inated, no question.

Now bannal (which my MicrosoftWord program insists I am not spelling correctly), if pronounced in the same way that one would say annal with that assertive ah start to it, just doesn’t quite draw up an image of fast words sent off on a keyboard, and would not have worked well either.

The truth is that saying the phrase blog forces one’s mouth to drop open – for an extended moment even – in order to say it out loud, suggesting similar phrasings, sounds and meanings such as the blahs, bloppy, and various non-word, unofficial sounds that generally communicate boredom or a ho-hum, super-casual attitude and…[Excuse me, my spelling error just brought up attidude which completely distracted my train of thought.]…well, one can probably think of some other possibilities. Mouthing blog truly does suggest an element of mild surprise or maybe feeling aghast. (Are we in fact amazed at our-selves for writing a Dear Diary without a lock and key?)

Brecord is a stretch. As a weird combination of a puff of breath - said with a determined accent as in brec’ord – it can be suggestive of haughtiness inherent in the Queen’s multi-shire version of English. Brecord. Not once does it make one think of writing up one’s thoughts or hard-earned opinions, and posting them in a public, unlegislated place for absolutely anyone on the planet to view while in their slippers at home, sitting straight at work, or tilting the monitor away from the next cubby at the library.

Now the offspring of ‘Web Journal’ – and I’m suggesting bjrnl, here – has a whole lot going for it. With European tennis players and unconventional female singers adding to the world cultural fund, most of the word-pronouncers of the literate English-speaking world no longer have any problem wrapping their flexible lips around anything beginning with ‘bj—.’ It’s slightly tricky getting the hard b and the leggy y to be friends but most of us can do it with minor practice, so this suggested short phrase of bjrnl (which is a second-degree short form of bjournal of course) might really have worked.

Blog is it, though. Some will not want to spend even a synapse’s handshake between brain hemis-pheres over this kind of what-if playfulness, let alone a half-hour of their Sunday afternoon (as I just have). But, sometimes one can’t help the ideas that surface and demand a little attention, which simply will not stay still until one does something with them.

As for me, I don’t have time or exhibitionism enough to blog. What do you think memoirs are for?

Linda Bergeron writes poetry, autobiographical essays and has been a freelance correspondent for the HELLS CANYON JOURNAL for ten years.

This entry was posted on May 11, 2008 at 16:06 and is filed under Contributing Authors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.