Friday, October 12, 2007
Checking blogs and blogging
I've noticed that Microsoft Word doesn't recognize "blog" and "blogging" as proper words. Here are the suggested replacements for each:

Blog:
  • Bog
  • Bloc
  • Blot
  • Blob
  • Blow
Blogging:
  • Bogging
  • Logging
  • Flogging
  • Clogging
  • Sogging
The Associated Press is more comfortable with the word. Here's what its Ask the Stylebook site said earlier this year:
AP has found that "blog" is familiar enough to readers now that "Web log" is no longer necessary.
Perhaps Microsoft will catch up with this for the next version of Word. Meanwhile, we can contemplate how to cite blogs in academic papers. The NLM Style Guide for Authors, Editors and Publishers offers this guidance.
 
posted by Andy Bechtel at 10:33 AM | Permalink |


3 Comments:


  • At 5:03 PM, Anonymous Anonymous

    We use blog on first reference, too, but I'm not convinced most of our readers know what a blog is. I have people ask me what a blog is with some frequency. Of course, they are of my gray-haired generation.

    I'm doubtful they know what a Web log is either, for that matter.

     

  • At 1:01 PM, Anonymous Anonymous

    "Web log" just sounds dumb.

     

  • At 9:52 PM, Blogger Jacob

    Amazingly, Andy, until recently even blogger.com's spellcheck didn't recognize "blog" as a word. Go figure.

     
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