origins of the word blog

curiosity

I just started reading WordPress book 1 and I was curious about the word blog.

the obvious meaning is a website that publishes stuff usually regularly, but what are the origins?

history

let’s step backwards, blog is a shorthand for weblog which is quite simply a connection of web and log.

web

the word web started being used circa 1992, after the longer form World Wide Web started being more common. The word web itself, is really interesting because it wasn’t in the entire history that a web could be associated with a spider.

a web is something woven, interconnected, with many touching points.

log

the log part of the compound word has a deep and vast history ,such as its origin, the sea, or more specifically, sailing the sea. A chip log was the tool sailors used to determine the speed of sail.

log then widened its meaning to write any information about a ship while sailing (in order). And eventually used to describe record of observations, readings, etc.

the chip log used a log, a piece of straight wood. With thick fibery history of its own.

definition

blog – using a tool to add records in order(or not) to an interconnected ecosystem platform living in the virtual space of the internet. Wowzie!