Singularification

[jack]

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4655#more-4655

Apparently, it's now become common to refer to an individual piece of electronic mail as "an email"</irony>. And to an individual piece of spam as "a spam". And to an individual blog post as "a blog".

I'm not sure how to find peace between my inner descriptivist who says "duh, obviously" and my inner prescriptivist who says "AGH! MY EYES! KILL IT WITH FIRE FROM ORBIT! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! ZE GOGGLES, ZEY DO NOTHING!"

Comments

[ptc24]

You see, the first two seem fine, the latter is not fine, due to "blog" already being taken for a whole blog.

[fluffymormegil]

I agree. "blog" for a single blog post is up there with "trouser waistband lower than underpants waistband" on "ideas people need to be poked with sticks for promulgating".

[jack]

Ah, good point. Maybe I'm annoyed more because it seems to be repurposing a word which had a related but different meaning, whereas wantonly coining singulars where the word was previously unused, is occasionally annoying, but usually useful and unambiguous.