Blogspeak Can Grate on the Blerves

A NEW WORD BEGAN appearing online and generated some buzz recently: blook. It's a book published serially on a blog.

Great. The media phenomenon responsible for the publication of more self-indulgent nonsense than any other in the history of the world is spawning its own language. Or should I say blanguage?

Some blogs — informal online journals that are frequently updated and intended for public consumption — are great, especially the political ones. Political bloggers keep their eyes on the so-called mainstream press and refuse to allow the big boys to decide which stories deserve life and which should die. This is a wonderful transformation of the old big-media gatekeeper model.

But let's face it: Outside politics, 99.9% of blog entries are, well, horseblit with links to more horseblit. The vast majority of people are not professional communicators for a reason. They don't do it very well.

So if most bloggers don't use the language we already have very well, what the bleck are they doing inventing a new one? It's almost as if those girls we all hated in grade school who spoke pig Latin to one another during lunch took over a section of the Internet.

However, blogspeak does offer endless possibilities for some neat new words. The following are a few suggestions:

1. Blivel. For those who were made uncomfortable by the twin references to horseblit above, most blog entries also can be described as a bunch of self-indulgent blivel.

2. Blarketing. This one's a no-brainer. Companies marketing on blogs are blarketing. If advertising on blogs takes off, this could spawn new job titles like vice president of blarketing and bladvertising. But will the medium mainly be direct blarketing or bland advertising? Probably both. Though it won't really take off until the big-money bland guys embrace it.

3. Corporate blopaganda. Another term for public relations aimed at countering the effects of negative blog posts. As bloggers increasingly use their forums to voice displeasure with companies, those firms will have to counter with blopaganda. It won't work, but they won't have any choice.

4. Blerd. Someone who spends way too much time on his blog and, as a result, is bereft of social skills. We don't mock these people, however. We feel sorry for them because they're so blonely.

5. Blintegrated. Bloggers' sites will become part of these ad campaigns. Or at least this is what agencies will tell clients they intend to do with blogs just to make clients think the agency has all its bases covered.

6. Blynergy. When marketing blogs link together, they will claim to have blynergy. They won't, of course. Their cultures will be too different to have anything other than a mutually antagonistic relationship. But they'll claim to have blynergy anyway.

7. Blemographics. A blogger's wishful description of the types of people who visit the site, such as “affluent men and women with above-average disposable income.” For a more accurate description, see “blerd” above.

8. Blaradigm. a nonsense word that gasbag, self-important bloggers will use to try and hide the fact that their sentences are usually bereft of meaning, all the while claiming to have revolutionized some established way of communicating or doing business.

Imagine the press-release headlines: “Blintegrated Blarketing Campaign Creates New Blaradigm.”