Kottke led me to this post by Wes Felter rightfully criticizing William Safire’s rough’n’far from ready article ostensibly reviewing the jargon of the blogosphere. Among the numerous factual errors, Safire’s primary source for these facts – blogossary.com gets things so wrong it’s almost laughable. Here’s a quick example of their entry for ‘meme’: “A meme is a type of online chain letter where bloggers answer questions or participate in a quiz designed to give a quick overview of the author’s personality.”
I can’t believe that such a well-respected writer at the Times uses a single (barely visited) site as a primary source for his article. Even five minutes spent googling or hell – askjeevesing (get it before he’s gone) – would have exposed Safire’s factual ‘malfunction’ with a teeny bit of evidence.