I recently changed to a new system for updating content on our website, and last night it didn't work, so I am scrambling to fix things. Thanks to everyone who wrote in to tell me it wasn't working - what a great way to wake up on a rainy Monday morning! Anyway, I appreciate your patience.

Update: difficulties have been resolved in the short term. Still slightly concerned about the long term.

If you couldn't read Sunday's Book Club on Sunday (or Monday) please try again. I have resolved the technical difficulties that were preventing my life from working correctly. From now on not only will the strip display correctly, but I will be taller, smarter, and funnier.

The Language Log takes issue with our characters taking issue with the neologism webinar. This isn't the first time the Language Log (or is it "langlog"?) has aimed its vocabularific sight at Unshelved.

Speaking as the artist of a webcomic and someone who blogs, believe me when I say I have no problem with making up new words for new things. I'm a big fan. I just happen to hate the word "webinar". I think it's ugly, and I think it does a bad job of conveying the new concept as it's hard to figure out what two words are being combined ("blog" suffers from this too, but at least it's a fun word to say). I have a negative reaction whenever I see or hear it (which, fortunately, is seldom), and it was my saying "Can we get rid of this word?" that prompted Gene to write the strip in question.

Not every neologism is a good one, and I applaud the efforts of those, like LSSU, who attempt to prune them, as well as the misuse and overuse of extant words and phrases.

But it gets publicity for the Language Log!