Blog about a blog
March 10 2023
Where do new words come from? Sometimes humankind suddenly finds itself in need of a sackful of new words in a hurry. This is often caused by some brain box creating something that no-one saw coming. While we are all still waiting for those flying cars and houses on the Moon that were predicted in 1950s science fiction books and movies, there were other technological advances that caught us completely unawares.
A single, amazing and unexpected innovation can lead to a whole dictionary full of new words. One of the most recent examples of this is the home of dancing cats and surfing dogs. That’s right! The Internet! This word was invented by a man named Vint Cerf. Vint is known as ‘The Father of the Internet’. From my experience, being a father is hard enough, but who would want to try and parent the Internet? If the Internet was a child, it would be a screaming, crying, laughing, dancing nightmare, constantly being sent home from school (even on weekends), and it would never, ever, ever sleep.
Quite sensibly, Daddy Vint decided to use a tried and tested method to create his new word. He took parts of other words and mashed them together. ‘Inter’ is a prefix meaning 'between'. This means it can be stuck in front of another word to change its meaning.
​ We use it in words such as international (between nations) and interrupt (to break in between). ‘Net’ comes from the word ‘network’. Funnily enough, network is itself made by mashing two words together. It was originally used to describe any system of connecting wires, pipes or roads. Although we cannot see them, the Internet is a huge spaghetti tangle of links and connections spread between every corner of the globe. This amazing invention means that a fourth grader in California can watch a live video from Australia showing a hamster wearing a cowboy hat riding on the back of an adorable pug dog.
Another word that sprang from the world of computers is ‘blog’. You may have read a blog. You may even be reading this one. A blog is a website which is regularly updated, almost like an old-fashioned diary or journal. This word was first introduced in the 1990s as ‘weblog’. It was made by squishing ‘web’ and ‘log’ together. The ‘web’ part is obvious. It refers to the ‘World Wide Web’, another name for the Internet. The ‘log’ part is a little confusing at first. When you think of a log do you picture a heavy piece of wood hacked off a tree trunk? What on earth does that have to do with keeping an online journal? This is the kind of challenge word detectives love.
Think of a time at school when you were asked to keep a record of something. Most likely it involved a piece of paper with a table of columns where you had to write down how many minutes you read for every night. Funnily enough, your school never seemed interested in how long kids spend watching TV or playing their favorite video games. Teachers have been assigning these ‘reading logs’ over the summer vacation as part of a long tradition. The second part of the tradition is at the end of the vacation when the student realizes they have not been filling in the reading log and hastily manages to ‘lose’ it by burying it in a deep hole at the end of their yard.
So ‘log’ can mean journal or record, but this still does not explain the whole ‘lump of wood’ connection. For this we need to sail back to the 1600s. Ships back then did not have any of the modern devices that help them determine how fast, how far and in what direction they were traveling. This is where our old friend, the lump of wood, came in. Sailors would tie a log to a long piece of rope. The rope would have knots tied in it that were about 50 feet apart. They would hold the rope and drop the log off the front of the ship. They then recorded how many knots passed through their hands in a certain amount of time. The more knots they counted, the faster the ship was going. The captain would then record this in a book called… a log book! Today ships still keep log books. They are used to record a whole host of important information, including speed, weather, direction and stopping points. Interestingly, if you ask a captain how fast their ship is traveling, they will give you the answer, not in miles per hour, but in ‘knots’!
Finally, as a further fun activity, ask the captain if you can see his own private log book. This will probably be one of those pink velvet diaries with a darling little padlock. On the front it will say something like 'Captain Crusty's Secret Journal- KEEP OUT! (This means you, First Mate Wilkins!)
This reminds me of a treatment for my dyslexia. The specialist old me it could help to keep a diary. Some years later he called by to see how I was doing. I happily showed him all of the cows I had and told him how much milk I was transporting every day......
You never disappoint!
Interesting and informative!