[Air-l] origin of "blog"

[elijah wright]

> Last week, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition
> (2003), appeared in bookstores for the first time. I was surprised not
> to find an entry for "blog."  I thought the term was at least 5 years
> old.  Am I right?  For how long has the term been in existence among
> bloggers?  (Webster's Tenth Edition, 1993, understandably did not
> include "blog"; a representative from M-W says, however, that even for
> the 2003 edition the term is neither old enough nor generally known
> enough outside bloggerhood to be included in the Eleventh. Am I
> justified in my astonishment, or is the rep telling it like it really
> is?)  --Bernard

weblog dates back to probably 1997 - Jorn Barger's coinage.  'blog' as an
abbreviation came from Peter Merholz' 1999 announcement that he was going
to pronounce "weblog"  as "weee-blog".

you can find this info in Rebecca Blood's essay, "weblogs: a history and
perspective", available at
http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html


~elijah