Vernacular Hero: "blogosphere"

Vernacular Hero is a new series targeting the worst offenders in the English vernacular - words, phrases, slang - anything overused, abused, outdated, or just plain stupid that should be completely stricken from the language altogether. I am very excited to launch this new series because it lets me exercise my editorial muscle while doing some serious venting. Boom.

First act of vernacular heroism is:

blogosphere
n. The social network made up of the blogging community.
Example: "It caused quite a stir in the blogosphere."

I hate this term despite the fact that I technically exist in it. It sounds amateurish and gives off this pretentious vibe as if the blogging community has somehow reached a level of atmospheric importance.

It also sounds like a quote from Apollo 13: "Houston, we have cleared the blogosphere."

The word is essentially creating an organic entity out of bloggers, which is redundant, except it is a lot easier for pundits to say than "it caused a lot of controversy in the blogging community." If "blogosphere", than why not "webosphere," or "pornosphere," or "newsosphere?"

It is time to retire this snobby term and call the "blogosphere" what it is - a bunch of people that write blogs. I'm cool with that. I don't need some fancy title to feel self assured of what I do here. I just throw some words and images together and post it on the internet. It really is not that glamorous.