The last word of the year

"The dictionary will define 'blog' as 'an online journal which produces fame without wealth for pajama-clad scribes, known as bloggers, who write so well they don't need editors and who survive by eating ramen noodles and Tang powder from a spoon,'" writes Scott Ott of ScrappleFace re Merriam-Webster's "Word of the Year":

Merriam-Webster, the dictionary publisher, today announced that 'blog' was the most-searched word on its website in 2004 and will be added to the dictionary in 2005. However, the term 'Instalanche' failed to make the top 10, delivering another crushing blow to blogger Glenn Reynolds.

'Instalanche', which missed a top-10 ranking despite a vigorous lobbying effort, is a brief but powerful spike in blog traffic, generated by a link from InstaPundit.com, which creates in the affected blogger a fleeting sense of euphoria and heightened self-esteem, followed by weeks of doubt and progressive self-loathing."

InstaPundit creator Glenn Reynolds could not be reached for comment. However, unnamed associates said that the Instalanche production business has such a small profit margin that Mr. Reynolds must moonlight as a law professor just to make ends meet.

What makes a great humorist?  Ask Mark Twain -- in this attributed quotation -- re the secret of the satirist's art:

The humorous story is told gravely; the teller does his best to conceal the fact that he even dimly suspects that there is anything funny about it.

That's ScrappleFace. With the news stories of the day as his raw material, he fashions parodic satires of MSMspeak that make us laugh -- sometimes, like today, out loud -- at our own and others' all-too-human folly.

Comments

[Scott Ott]

Thanks for the Twain quote, Sissy. It shall guide me if ever I should try my hand at writing humor or satire.

[Sissy Willis]

May God help you, Scott -- and your readers -- if you ever should. :)