Book People Archive

Re: What's an ebook?...What's a reader?

On Tue, 20 Mar 2001 NakedWord@[redacted] wrote:

> > when used in everyday situations will be ambiguous.  "Reader" used in
> > place of "book" clears up this ambiguity.
> > 
> > Personally, I hate the word "reader", though I suppose there is some need
> > to clear up the ambiguity now that the physical medium and the text are no
> > longer so irreversibly associated with each other.
> > 
> 
> Please, God, NO!!! A reader is the person who looks at the book and garners 
> the meaning. What hardware makers may call a reader is nothing more than a 
> playback device. . .[snip]

Remember when the OED was chastised when it still said a computer was a
person who computes. . .and not all that long ago. . .???

> We have dodged this bullet before. Neither a 
> motion picture projector nor a video display unit is usually called a viewer, > and a radio transponder isn't a listener. I hope for a time when all 
> electrical devices used to output media are called, simply, players or units 
> or some such l.c.d. CD Player. Record player. Tape player. Video player. MP3 
> player. Book player.

The thing is that we DO *play* music, and games, as above and below.
*Reading* music is NOT at all the same as *playing* music.
I was once quite proficient [a true professional] at playing several
instruments, but I never could read music all that well, it's just
not the same thing at all.
> 
> But what about "game player?" Is it the device or the person operating it?
>              
As above, and even further above, with "computer."


> Maybe we should just write, read and publish books as we see fit and let 
> language develop based on popular usage, as it undoubtedly will, 
> inconsistencies and all. So what if the forces driving the change are 
> (shudder) the marketing departments of multi-gazillion-dollar corporations. 
> After all, for a culture as euphemistically inclined as ours, "reader" does 
> hit pretty close to the mark.

If it read out loud as it's major function, I would agree with you,
but the truth is that YOU have to READ a book to make it work, quite
unlike passive musical experiences. . .like "record players, CD players,
tape players" et. al.

> 
> Maybe things will get simple and the first successful brand will become the 
> generic term. Kleenex. Xerox. Walkman... Rocket?
> 

Too bad the Bookman was such a failure. . . .

> Or maybe... One good acronym is all that's really needed. Nobody wonders what > a VCR or an ATM is. Any portable device designed to output stuff for human 
> appreciation is a Portable Output Device. POD
> 

Sound too much like the PODS in The Day of the Triffids!!!

ICK!

> Jim Weiler, reader, viewer, listener, POD person

I believe it!!!

hee hee  [no offense intended, and I hope not received]


Thanks!
             
So nice to hear from you!


Michael S. Hart
<hart@[redacted]>
Project Gutenberg
"Ask Dr. Internet"
Executive Director
Internet User ~#100