Magda posted to her own blog for the first time in 258 days with today’s post (In search of community?).

She quotes some US sports writer’s blog writing about vetigal slang or quirks in journalism like ending stories with “30″ or using the word “graf” for paragraph. When he was firts told to bring “grafs” back from a basketball game he wasn’t sure what kind of data charts, or graphs, his boss wanted.

Personally I despise people using the non-word “graf.” I think it is a stupid thing because it can cause confusion. At least the spelling “lede” avoids confusion with the heteronym lead which could also refer to the metal with a low melting point that used to be used in printing, like in a linotype machine. Now the spelling lede outlived its usefulness just as lead did.

Magda says:

I have conflicted feelings about those details of modern journalism that still hearken to a simpler time, when reporting jobs were around each corner and pages were put together with knives and glue.

I do not have conflicted feeling about knives and glue they are to be used to cleave things apart and together, heh heh. Newspapers, that is news actually, should be put together with knowledge, information and skill out of words and pictures. Maybe that will start happening oneday.