Blog or blog post?

October 26, 2017 10:55 AM

Is calling a blog post a "blog" accepted usage?

It drives me up a grammar pedant wall but if it's really, truly the way the English language is going, I'll get over it. Recent references appreciated (so, not this from 2013), which articulates my point of view astutely).

Example: "She wrote a great blog on the top 10 reasons everyone is annoyed by grammar pedants. I'll have to check out the rest of her blog." The first instance of "blog" should be "blog post." The second is correct.

posted by ramenopres to Writing & Language (20 answers total)

Calling a blog post a “blog” annoys me too, but if I had had my way, nothing would ever have been called a “blog.” I got over it, and you will too.
posted by ejs at 11:01 AM on October 26, 2017

It's common usage but I agree it's wrong.
posted by Nelson at 11:02 AM on October 26, 2017 [13 favorites]

Youtubers, who are ruling the next generation of internet users, refer to their single-video, chatty diary type postings as "vlogs," which they post to their "vlog channel" (to distinguish from their normal content channel). I don't specifically recall anyone referring to a blog/blog entry in this way though I'm sure I have, but extrapolating I'm sure that people would use the word blog like this and not even bat an eye.

This is the way the English language is going and it's mentally healthier for you to get over it.
posted by phunniemee at 11:09 AM on October 26, 2017

I remember first being aware of this with MySpace, so at least 20 years ago. They used to send alerts that said, "Friend has published a new blog!" meaning post.
posted by Ideal Impulse at 11:11 AM on October 26, 2017

You're not the only one who finds it annoying but it's a very common usage, and it's not like there is some authoritative grammar body that is going to rule on this one way or the other. You will have to get over it, or maybe even find it interesting!
posted by mskyle at 11:12 AM on October 26, 2017

I'm sorry to say it probably is, yes.
posted by thelonius at 11:12 AM on October 26, 2017

Sadly, yes (from 2013).
posted by caek at 11:20 AM on October 26, 2017

I missed my edit window. At least *10 years ago
posted by Ideal Impulse at 11:21 AM on October 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

In the Star Trek television shows, both Kirk and Picard referred to their log entries as "Captain's log" - if they had a follow-up to the entry, they'd call it a "supplemental log."
posted by muddgirl at 11:28 AM on October 26, 2017

Concurring with all the folks who have said that (a) it's horribly annoying and bad and also (b) very much a common, well-attested usage that I've long since given up agitating against.
posted by cortex at 11:40 AM on October 26, 2017

I feel your pain, ramenopres. "Really? You put up a whole new web site just for that?"
posted by emelenjr at 11:40 AM on October 26, 2017 [8 favorites]

I usually see "blog post" shortened to "post", not "blog". Yes, things get dumbed-down like this; & a shortcut effaces distinctions. Product of (verb) becomes (noun) [run->run] is probably a regular process. Damned newbies (says an erstwhile reader of Robot Wisdom). I wouldn't call it accepted usage, any more than I would call using "it's" as possessive is accepted, despite its DAMNABLE frequency.
posted by lathrop at 11:43 AM on October 26, 2017 [2 favorites]

Sadly, I think calling a post a blog has become accepted usage.
posted by OrangeDisk at 11:46 AM on October 26, 2017

Don't get me started on calling individual forum posts or threads "forums".
posted by humboldt32 at 11:47 AM on October 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

See also people referring to "my Twitter," or saying "check out his Twitter" or Facebook/Insta/whathaveyou, eliding "feed" whether consciously or not. I hear this a lot in podcast outros, where the guest plugs their various social media channels. Grrr.
posted by mumkin at 12:34 PM on October 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

Ha, my uncle just started a blog and he does this. I just thought it was an old-fogey thing, but maybe not?
Personally, I call the whole thing a blog, and the blog is made up of posts.
I've never heard anyone else call the posts blogs, and it sounds silly to me. (I am 42 and have been blogging for maybe 13 years?)
posted by exceptinsects at 1:28 PM on October 26, 2017

You have a blog. Your blog has posts.
posted by DarlingBri at 2:29 PM on October 26, 2017 [5 favorites]

ARGH ONE OF MY SALES PEOPLE USED TO DO THIS. I hated it so much. "I posted a new blog today" OH GOD JUST STOP. And we work in IT - not just me, our company is in the IT industry. But yes, it's common. I wish it wasn't, but it is.
posted by dust.wind.dude at 2:30 PM on October 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

I email about blogs and blog posts constantly and yes, I sometimes refer to a single blog post as a blog.

For example "I just posted your new blog." I think of it as short hand, because sometimes including the word post is redundant or I've already referred to a lot of other types of posts (not blog related) in one email.

I agree that it isn't the most specific or correct way of referring to a blog post. That said, I think it is a reasonable usage and that the meaning usually remains clear.
posted by sweetjane at 2:33 PM on October 26, 2017

Accepted usage by whom? I've worked full-time for a blog (probably one of the last few big sites that still identifies that way, at least some of the time) for the last seven years. In the media world, I've almost never heard professionals call a blog post a "blog."

The general public, though, I think has been accurately described in the rest of the thread. But blogging feels so rare to me now that I wonder how often it even comes up. Perhaps, though, that might have contributed to the (apparent) frequency of using the word "blog" to mean "blog post"—you just don't have a lot of bloggers anymore (or at least, blogging as a medium is a much smaller proportion of media as a whole), so maybe people are just less familiar with the nuances of the whole phenomenon.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 10:28 PM on October 26, 2017