The flagging fortunes of ‘flog’ in Australian parlance

Creators of new words have to be wary of entering an overcrowded market. The digital-age use of flog was originally as a shortening for food blog, and then achieved notoriety in the sense of fake blog. These flogs, dating back to around 2005, were advertising strategies – blogs purporting to be written by individuals — but in fact created by corporate marketing departments to endorse a product.