Always these gender issues
First to the facts: You know Germans are obsessed with the gender of words. Dictionaries such as Duden online and DWDS list both neuter and masculine as the gender for the word blog. In plain German, DAS blog is just as correct as DER blog, but DIE blogs only exist in the plural.
The perceived truth is different: DAS blog in German is, to my perception, nearly extinct. As a linguistic dinosaur, I mourn this genderfail that could so easily be solved. This goal in mind, the solution may be captivating mathematical precision in the German language. Then two ingenious equations could be set up without any problems. The best thing is: Our blog formula is far from complicated. Possible similarities with Einstein's theory of relativity are of course nothing but coincidence.
The blog formula
DAS Log + DAS Buch (book) = DAS Logbuch
DAS Web + DAS Log = DAS Weblog
Weblog is quickly shortened to Blog and voilà, what remains is
DAS blog. Q. e. d.
Any further questions? (German is weird ^^)
Language is changing
I don't want to compete with the wave of DER blog writers. But for our new community blog I have announced and recorded my dying opinion herewith. How the future of all three grammar sexes in German will develop, we’ll see. The language times they are exchanging.
The discussions that took place on the Internet a good 15 years ago about the correct gender of DER/ DIE/ DAS blog show one thing above all: quite obviously, the German language holds more than one gender issue in store. No need for a culture war.
Language is an indispensable means of communication, and language can hardly do without grammar. Otherwise we would misunderstand each other even more in a monstrous Babylonian tangle of languages. And yet language is always arbitrary.
Blog trademark
Our human reaction is rarely rational. (Of course, that goes for the reaction of our blog editors, too!) That's why I, too, am allowed to be both: in favor of gendering and against the wrong article for DAS blog. The editorial deadline is set: We are proud of DAS Pro:Hive-Blog, DAS Beta-Ǝ blog, in short: DAS Blog.
