This post is going to be similar to a previous post which I published concerning the phrase “so therefore.” There’s further discussion of “so therefore” over on the WordReference.com forums where I started a thread about it.

Today I would like to talk about talking about blogging. There seems to be some confusion. I hear people, most commonly professors at my school, refer to individual blog posts as a blog. This is not only incorrect but misleading. Consider the following:

“Yesterday I read a new blog by Al Mohler.”

Upon hearing this phrase I immediately begann to wonder whether Al Mohler had started blogging at a new location other than albertmohler.com because “blog” and “a blog” usually refer, in a collective sense, to an entire set of blog posts. For example, you are reading my blog at KataDrew.com. Specifically, you are reading a (blog) post entitled “How to Talk About Blogs” on my blog KataDrew. You are not reading a new blog on my blog. That is imprecise, for I only have one blog and it is at KataDrew.com. My blog is, however, made up of many posts.

Posts are the specific, individual units which make up a blog. Remember that the word “blog” is simply short for weblog (“web” + “log”). Blogs therefore do not make up blogs but posts make up blogs. Note in the images to the right the usage of the word “post” in one blogging platform’s administration section (WordPress).

One possible exception is an aggregated group blog such as Said at Southeastern (sebts.blogspot.com) which aggregates posts from several different blogs to make up it’s own blog in a sense, though it doesn’t have its own posts. Still, you’ll want to refer to a post you read on Said at Southeastern not a blog you read on Said at Southeastern. But, you could say that you found a blog through Said at Southeastern and read one of its posts.

So to rephrase the initial example to be precise you’ll want to say something like:

“Yesterday I read a new post on Al Mohler’s blog.”

Or

“Yesterday I read a new post by Al Mohler.”

Or

“Yesterday I read on Al Mohler’s blog a post about…”

May this help you avoid not only a personal pet peeve of mine, but imprecise language attendant with using “blog” to refer to both a blog and a post on a blog.