we blog therefore we are

Merriam-Webster has named “blog” as the #1 word of 2004 (based on online lookups.) A new entry for the word will be featured in the 2005 edition of their collegiate dictionary.

The English language is, of course, a very fluid thing, changing and thriving and growing as everyday life changes and thrives and grows. It is heartening that a word like “blog” (itself originally a contraction) has moved so quickly from slang to official sanction.

The flood of new terminology that has come with the explosion of internet communication has added momentum to the changes that American (and therefore, for better or for ill, world) English is going through.

While it may be perplexing to some…there are still, for example, some resisting the siren call of computer-based communication…change is a good thing. Language, like life, should never remain static and stagnant…it should be volatile and messy and ever challenging.

And so we blog therefore we are :-)

And for the record, the other words in the 2004 top ten are (in order): incumbent, electoral, insurgent, hurricane, cicada, peloton (the main body of riders in a bicycle race…brought to light by the Olympics, of course), partisan, sovereignty, and defenestration.