The American Dialect Society has finalized it's 2003 Words of the Year, based on votes from actual linguists.
Sadly a personal favorite, "asshat", came in third in the most useful new word of phrase category. Don't even get me started about the category winners...
Hat Tip: Gawker
Speaking of rigged elections and asshats, nominations for the 2004 Bloggies are open. As for nominating Wizbang, feel free, but it's almost a 100% lock the next few paragraphs will keep me out of contention, since the vetting process is done in secret.
The word Bloggie is not trademarked (I checked). Neither are the words 2003 Weblog Awards, a generic term, but one that I made up. In case you're wondering I did check around first. Imagine my surprise yesterday when I found that my name was magically added to the text of last years Bloggie Awards at the Fairvue site (as well as 2002 and 2001). The words 2003 Weblog Awards were not on the Fairvue site in November 2003 - I checked before I announced the 2003 Weblog Awards. Since there is a robot.text file blocking caching of the pages at Fairvue you'll have to check the Google links below and note that the term 2003 Weblog Awards (or 2002 Weblog Awards and 2001 Weblog Awards) are missing from the summaries of the Fairvue pages. The only possible reason I can figure is that Nikolai is trying to beef up their Google rating.
So in case it's not clear: Bite Me Nikolai; I don't care how long you've been doing this. Did I call my awards Bloggies? No, I had a little respect for the work of others. Pity you're trying to revise history now to capitalize on the work I did last month. Changing the name of your awards after the fact (including a word for word copy of my opening sentence) is bush league. I'm the first to admit that the term 2003 Weblog Awards is pretty generic, but the fact is you were not using it last year, and to revise history and pretend you were is dishonest.
Google searches: 2003 Weblog Awards, 2002 Weblog Awards, 2001Weblog Awards
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Comments (5)
Ummm, if he had the idea fo... (Below threshold)1. Posted by James | January 10, 2004 10:18 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Ummm, if he had the idea for a 'weblog awards' before you did (and he put his version into action before anyone else), then I'm sure he's right to call the Bloggies a 'weblog awards'. Like you say, it's a generic term and so it can't be your 'name'.
1. Posted by James | January 10, 2004 10:18 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on January 10, 2004 10:18
2. Posted by Kevin | January 10, 2004 10:25 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
He can call them whatever he likes. The problem is look at the current page (2004) and the previous pages. The all used to look like the 2004 page - as in the terms 2003 Weblog Awards, 2002 Weblog Awards, and 2001 Weblog Awards did not appear in those pages in any way shape or form. They do now...
2. Posted by Kevin | January 10, 2004 10:25 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on January 10, 2004 10:25
3. Posted by James Joyner | January 10, 2004 4:23 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Rather bizarre, I must admit. Given that yours spread almost entirely because, well, bloggers like to vote for themselves and get people to vote for them, I'm not really sure what the point is to going back and retroactively changing the name.
John Hawkins (Right Wing News) was running a blogger awards contest (I think 2nd annual) around the same time you were, but his was just done via e-mail solicitation and thus didn't generate the traffic yours did, since people could come in and vote multiple times at the site itself.
3. Posted by James Joyner | January 10, 2004 4:23 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on January 10, 2004 16:23
4. Posted by Kevin | January 10, 2004 5:07 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
As James notes RWN was running awards right before mine. It's not the Bloggies I object to, it's going back to the old pages and changing them to use my language. That's lame.
I specifically went to this pages and checked prior to settling on a name.
4. Posted by Kevin | January 10, 2004 5:07 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on January 10, 2004 17:07
5. Posted by Meryl Yourish | January 13, 2004 12:40 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
The Bloggies are worthless. Last year, the fix was in: Several of the judges deliberately voted to skew the nominating process and put a straight blogger in the gay category, if I recall correctly.
I won't bother this year. Awards should be juried, and there should be money involved, or they're just popularity contests. And even juried and moneyed awards are popularity contests.
5. Posted by Meryl Yourish | January 13, 2004 12:40 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on January 13, 2004 12:40