Do you blog? Yes? Then when you sit down to write something for that blog, do you “write a blog” or do you “write a post”?
If you answered “write a blog”, then you are one of the doofus digerati that makes the Phrase Freak cry.
It’s a common error (especially on MySpace) and one that is understandable. The blog is still a relatively new phenomenon (not in web years, but in the writing world), so the conventions are still shaking out. That said, this is an error in usage that we should all try to stamp out now, while there’s still time. (I’m still upset that phrase freaks and grammarians everywhere were unable to prevent the odious “proactive” or even worse, “moving forward.“)
If you were writing an article or story for a newspaper, would you say, I’m writing a newspaper? Of course not, that would sound ridiculous. (Unless you’re a one-person operation, in which case it may be accurate, but still sound absurd.)
If you were writing a sit-com would you say, I’m writing a TV? Only if you were the Vice-President of TV.
Acceptable:
- writing a (blog) post
- writing a blog entry
- posting to a blog
- writing
- posting
- blogging.
This gets 4 gobsmacks out of 10:
Just once I’d like to hear a reporter say, “well Bill, there are a few ants milling around what appears to be a crumb of bread … no, no strike that, it’s a piece of donut. Next to this frenzied activity, I can see a few dead leaves and Oh My God — there is a crack in the sidewalk! We can’t tell if this crack is growing or the result of some kind of seismic activity, but we’ll check into it for you Bill.”