On articles and blogs
My first memory of the word “blog” was my four-years-older brother complaining that he didn’t like the term. “It’s a web log,” he insisted, “not a buh-lawg!” I don’t know why he felt so passionately, but as a dutiful little brother I adopted his position without question.
So from my earliest days online I have avoided the word blog. Occasionally I used “web log” or just “log”, but even when I was writing on Blogger I didn’t refer to my site or my writing as a “blog”.
After college, I spent some time as an amateur soccer journalist covering the lower leagues in my area. I have fond memories of interviewing players and staff and writing about their experiences (though most of what I wrote were less-memorable match reports).
In journalism, you write the news. You write articles. The word feels more dignified. An article is professional. An article is something worth writing—worth reading.
When I begin writing as a software engineer, I continued with that term. That’s what I used on this site, both as a label and URL.
But as time passes, I’m starting to reevaluate my position. I don’t actually have a problem with the word blog (though my brother still might!). And calling what I write here “articles” is a stretch. “Blog” is the common term, and a blog is what I have.
I’m not going to change my site based on this realization. After all, cool URLs don’t change. But I am going to describe this site differently. Instead of telling people “I write articles on my website”, I’m going to try “I write posts on my blog.”
It’s more accurate and more helpful, so I’m going with it (sorry bro!).
Thanks for reading my blog!