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Thursday, December 02, 2004
***BLOG*** most requested word of the year.
UD has been studying with interest the just-released Merriam-Webster's list of this year's ten most requested words. "Blog," as many people have already noted, is number one, and UD, une blogeuse tres enthousiaste (a recent check of UD's traffic reveals a healthy number of French readers, to whom UD intends to pander), is of course pleased about this. Somewhat disturbing, though, is the rest of the list: 1. blog 2. incumbent 3. electoral 4. insurgent 5. hurricane 6. cicada 7. peloton 8. partisan 9. sovereignty 10. defenestration At first blush, this looks innocent enough, with its allusions to an election year and various plagues and catastrophes ... Yet on closer inspection, UD can't help but detect an occult meaning lying within this seemingly random list. UD is about as far from being a conspiracy theorist as you can get, but the more she considers these ten most-requested words, and the more she asks herself who might have requested them, the more persuaded she becomes that they intend to convey a message. The message clearly involves a blog, and an "insurgent" one at that. Connect the words sequentially into blank verse and see what happens: Upon each blog it is incumbent To appeal to the electoral whims Of readers. When one little blog becomes insurgent It hits the big guys like a hurricane, Like a sudden cicada swarm. Defensively, they form a peloton of partisans To assert their sovereignty. I don't know what to do with "defenestration." |