Oh, I happen to know the answer to this question because I was drinking in the bar with the guy who made up the word when he did so. I like to think that I bought the single-malt that brought the word to the world -- though it wasn't until he posted it to his own weblog (back when there were, oh, 6 of them), and our friends ev and meg decided to use it to name their new web app blogger, that the shortened version started to gain currency. This was all back in May of '99. Details here: < http://www.peterme.com/archives/00000205.html > Lane -- Lane Becker, Adaptive Path http://adaptivepath.com/
Last week, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition (2003), appeared in bookstores for the first time. I was surprised not to find an entry for "blog." I thought the term was at least 5 years old. Am I right? For how long has the term been in existence among bloggers? (Webster's Tenth Edition, 1993, understandably did not include "blog"; a representative from M-W says, however, that even for the 2003 edition the term is neither old enough nor generally known enough outside bloggerhood to be included in the Eleventh. Am I justified in my astonishment, or is the rep telling it like it really is?) --Bernard