Just as "majority" didn't quite fit, "blog" isn't quite right for all sites such as this one where folks contribute posts.....

....and incidentally still wondering in the meantime if anyone might have encountered an abbreviation or other shortie for the computer, as "PC" means to many only the typical modular Windows type

blog
internet forum

PC already means that and always has. However IBM and Microsoft advertising have succeeded in associating their specific products with the term in the public consciousness.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_computer

Wordsmith is not a blog. It consists of several different pieces of software, one of which is a bulletin board. Another piece is a newsletter.

eta thank you most kindly for those links. I hadn't realized how "blog" has smeared, coming to mean any sort of weblog. Just as I had been taken to task by my my techie family for referring to my new Mac as "PC", so had I been raked over the coals for calling a weblog like this one a "blog"

Evidently it used to mean only a specific kind of weblog, now called the "personal blog" where participants chat about their everyday affairs

this is not a web-log.

The word blog is derived from the word weblog, some say through reanalysis as we blog. This is not smearing. This is the canonical definition.

>This is not smearing. This is the canonical definition.


TBI (to be ignored)

I'm dumbfounded. As far as I can determine "blog is short for "weblog" which is defined--at least by Dictionary.com as

web·log (wěb'lôg', -lŏg') Pronunciation Key
n. A website that displays in chronological order the postings by one or more individuals and usually has links to comments on specific postings.

So doesn't that make WS a blog

did you read the wikipedia links, dale? or are you just into some chain-wanking?

Forgive me Fal, but means what



I'm sorry again Fal but which term or terms with which specific product or products

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_computer

[/quote]

See my foregoing post

Yes really I did, or at east the introductory paragraphs which seemed to indicate that a PC or Personal Computer is any sort of desktop model no matter the maker or OS, and yes I understand that is the impression many if not most bloggers reflect. However my techie buddies tell me that that the unit first used widely for Windows etc and called the PC was of a sort of modular design not common with Apple units and that was the reason I shouldn't use that abbreviation in reference to my new Mac

So I was looking for an abbreviation or shortie expression that would cover either kind of computer without any ambiguity. My most abject apologies if I wan't clear

Also I got the impression that "blog," "message board," "weblog," "website," and "Internet forum" are used pretty much to mean the same thing

I hate to say it (well, okay.. not really) but I told y'all so.
-ron o.

Except that so far I have not felt the temptation to see what I'm missing. I think you warned that was possible when choosing to ignore a user but it hasn't happened for me.

now *that's funny!

Nope, never heard a short generic term for computer. Never really felt the need to look for one. I'll leave the search to those who insist on saying "double-you pee double-you" for Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome.

I'm not sure I trust Dictionary.com at the best of times, and this definition is particularly lax and misleading. It certainly does nothing to differentiate the multiple uses to which the web is now put.



Though I'm almost completely not a technophile, I suspect a simple googling of these terms would reveal the differences. A blog is (by definition) a weblog, which I like to think of as a public entry in a personal diary, or as a captain's log on a ship. Many may only have a blog on their website, but that no more makes them synonyms than people who only eat apples saying they eat lots of fruit (insert Faldagian rant about logical fallacies here).

A message board allows messages to be posted, and replies recieved in the same way a paper notice board would, though the replies and any subsequent discussion tends to be more public. An internet forum is simply a place for discussion of a particular brand of *stuff in the same way a as a public forum of old. I suspect the last two have blurred somewhat. For example, I would regard this place as a forum rather than a bulletin board, but the link in the top corner obviously disagrees.

I know. I never thought I was a masochist, but apparently...

PC refers to any personal computer. The use of PC predates the IBM PC. After the IBM PC came out, their advertising co-opted the use of the initialism. In the early days, we explicitly referred to IBM PC's to distinguish them from all others. Gradually, the generic use of PC faded.

That is, IBM and Microsoft have succeeded in the advertising war. Nowadays even many tech people will tell you (incorrectly) that the term PC applies only IBMs. "When people hear the word PC, we want them to think only of our product (IBM)."

It's true that the IBM systems were pretty clean, but not NEAR so clean and modular as current Windows machines. And the Osborne, I think, had at least as clean a design.

As technical words become widespread, I think their meanings become diffuse, more confusing, and less useful. At first, the newer meanings are just wrong, but you get to a point where ... if the vast majority of people say the word "pig" means "a type of fowl" then, well, I guess that's what it means.

Many people use the terms net, internet, and web interchangeably. Probably this reflects their own usage, but the fact that they all mean very different things is irrelevant to them. They don't know or care about the correct meanings of the words, because it's not important to them.

All blogs are websites, but not all websites are blogs. A message "board" is not a blog. Most message boards these days are websites (or are hosted at websites), but that was not always the case, as message boards predate the web.

Forgive me Fal, no offense, but my highly-remunerated aerospace IT Son No. 1 would rake you over the coals for that "[incorrectly]". And indeed, for what it's worth, the pre-'s vs the de-'s would debate your assertion indefinitely ad infinitum



Thank you for that rundown and I agree; before I turned in my credentials as prescriptivist for those of a de-, I preached my preference when a new technology appears, for applying a new word rather than stretching or "smearing" an old one; naming a rom a "drive," and the like, a tendency that could eventually wind using the term also to describe a written algorthm then eventually a book, any book

[/quote]

But when I look up these terms I get the distinct impression they are already all melding into one another

Though it confuses some of my corrspondents one of the reasons I like "PC" is that it saves keystrokes over "computer"



OneLook reflects all current usages and irrefutably demonstrates semantic drift or what I call "smearing". That you don't trust it reveals your credentials as a pre-; no offense, in fact I used to prefer the pre-'s over the de-s





[/quote]

Ok but no matter the word I use I seem to draw barbs from everywhere so I'm still open to a pet name or " shortie" for (1) computer and one covering (2) sites of all kinds, like this one, where people talk about things

I think you've smeared (in the more traditional sense) OneLook by equating it to Dictionary.com. they're not at all the same thing, as OneLook includes the latter, as well as 990 other dictionaries.


since you're chewing up Anu's bandwidth with this discussion, why not use his terminology: Wordsmith Talk (bulletin board) which includes several Forums of which this ( Q&A about words ) is one.

word

Yes tsu I realize that and I regret I can't express myself more clearly. What I meant to say was that a perusal of the dictionaries might reveal a number of more generalized definitions of certain terms which would support my observations about semantic shift


[/quote]

Yes yes again forgive me for my apparent lack of clarity. Quite to the contrary, I was not seeking a term specifically to describe WS but a more generalized expression that would cover all sites of a general type in which the average clod (me) by posting therein is found conversing with others; and preferably being foreshortened, abbreviated, or otherwise colorfully designated by a term using fewer letters but unlike "blog" or "PC" upon which most participants would agree

>unlike "blog" or "PC" upon which most participants would agree

yes, that would be forum. (one would hope that five(5) letters isn't too taxing.) unless you're of the old, pre-internet school which still tends to call them BBs.

Thank you tsu, yes, I had considered "forum." However I was under the impression that a forum was usually considered a collection of threads within the site and so that use might prove ambiguous

Or, to take a real world example, if the vast majority of people say the word "deer" means "a member of the family Cervidae" then, well, I guess that's what it means.

Nope, never heard a short generic term for computer.

I and some colleagues speak of laptops, desktops, and even palmtop (devices) rather generically to include personal computers that variously run MacOS, Windows, or one of the Unices. Box or host is almost always confined to speaking about a computer ('puter) running Unix.

unless you're of the old, pre-internet school which still tends to call them BBs

I tended to call them BBSes (short for bulletin board system, link) back in the day, and some even used the term bboard (link), though sadly, not I.