On Blogging

 Why Couldn't It Have Been Called Something Else?
   Posts on MM  beginning with "ON" usually mean the reader is in for a bit of pontification, about which we have had rather enough during the last few weeks. But, it is not the case that I will offer another bloated, preachy essay. I simply will type a few words about the word 'blog' as I consider whether or not to resume blogging.
   My output has declined, partially because I was away and the weather has been good. Now it is raining and I am inside, but I would be more excited about resuming blogging if it was called something else. 
   Let's face it, 'blog' is a homely word, like 'booger' or 'blob' and even 'blobbing' sounds a little better. Blog, like 'fart', 'turd', 'chunk' or 'thud' are words that would not be characterized as mellifluous and one would likely not be particularly proud  to be referred to as a 'chunker' or 'thudder' any more than one wants to be known as a 'farter.'
   Apparently the word 'blog' originated just before the turn of this century from 'weblog.' By the time I started blogging in 2016, the activity was already passé, but when friends my age asked what I was up to, saying 'blogging' sounded just as bad as some of those other words mentioned. Perhaps it would have sounded better if someone like Proust had been a blogger. 
   Blogs are now like emails in that no one reads them. Texts are favoured since they are short and are completed for you and come with emojis. Blogs have been replaced by Substacks, but I wouldn't say that 'substack' is a particularly attractive term either, but one does get paid for producing them. Reddit is not much better and reminds me of the sounds of frogs. For now I think I will keep on blogging, at least on rainy days.
Post Script: 
  If money was the object, I suppose I could start a substack, even though saying "I have my own substack" has less appeal than saying, for example, "I am a surgeon". In any case, talent is required in both cases. Writing a blog does not require any and one avoids getting replies like this from an editor.