I love books. I have hundreds of them. I love the look of them, the feel of them. I love the covers, the typeface, the paper, the heft of them. I'm a writer myself and I've published three books and would like to publish more.
However, I got an Amazon ebook, the so-called Kindle, last week, and I love it, too. Amazon has done a great job creating a package that is book-like, with "paper" and print that are book-like and combining it with some wonderful digital conveniences. Like wireless delivery. You want a book or a sample, it's there in a minute. Like being able to adjust the type size. You're reading in bed and your eyes are tired, kick up the type size a notch. Like carrying around numerous books and periodicals at once. Ready for a change of pace, have a few minutes to kill -- pick another book or article to read. Like getting a sample chapter to read first.
Will I regret at some point not being able to pass on to a friend a book I read on Kindle? Probably. But, hey, how often do you actually loan out a book. People will usually take a recommendation and get their own copy of the book.
When I got my Kindle and was reading it all the time, my girlfriend would ask, "Are you kindling?" or "Are you going to kindle some before going to sleep?" A new verb is born.
3 comments:
http://www.testycopyeditors.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=10612
With a heads up from Copynomad the other day that some people are already using kindle as a verb in terms of reading texts on their Kindle devices, I found a few quotes here and there. Any more? This word might catch on to stand for reading online, the way other corporate words turned into every day slang and catchwords, such "to xerox", "to google", "to yahoo", etc.
First quote I found at amazon.com:
"I've owned my Kindle for almost 6 months and love it. When I mention I'm reading a particular book, I refer to it as "I'm Kindling such & such a book" so it's already a verb to me. It's hard to imagine reading a regular book now! By the way, someone mentioned the Kindle costing $1300?!? Try $359 and books are less expensive than the printed version!
— Judy, Delray Beach, FL
see my blog on screening aka KINDLINg
http://zippy1300.blogspot.com
what is your POV on this?
danny in taiwan
Coining possible new word for "reading" online: "screening"?
"Reading" online will never be the same! -- "Screening" enters the
online vocabulary.
Do you "screen" news online, or do you "read" news in print
newspapers? -- A new word has been coined to refer to reading
information online, changing the way we take in information
What you are doing now is not reading, but
"screening." Yes, you are at this very moment screening the text
printed digitally on this computer screen. You are not reading text on
a paper surface; you are "screening" this article through the lens of
the computer screen in front of you. A new word is born -- screening!
When a top computer industry writer at the New York Times was told
about this new term, he told me in a one-word email note:
"Hmmmmmmm."
Screening? Can anyone just coin a new word and make it stick? No, but
new words are coined every day, and some stick and some don't. Time
will tell whether or not "screening" (to mean "reading information on
a computer screen, as distinct from reading a print newspaper or
magazine or book") will stay with us or not. For now, the word has
been accepted by the editors at urbandictionary.com and is listed
here:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.p ... =screening
Screening is defined as: "To read text on a computer screen, cellphone
screen, Kindle screen or PDA screen or BlackBerry screen; replaces the
term "reading" which now only refers to reading print text on paper."
Example: "I hate reading print newspapers now. I do all my screening online."
The word is so new, not everyone has seen it yet. And many do not
agree with its coinage.
Amit Gilboa, an Israeli writer living in Singapore, told me:
"No, it's still reading. Whether in a book, a print newspaper,
chalkboard, whiteboard, it's still reading words made up of letters.
Screening is still reading."
However, Hidetoshi Abe in Tokyo, Japan, told this reporter he likes
the new term and agrees it fits our new Internet age. "I think
'screening' makes perfect sense to represent the way we now take in
information via computer screens. It's a whole new ballgame."
Reading, of course, is a complex cognitive process of decoding symbols
printed on
a paper surface for the purpose of deriving meaning (reading
comprehension) and/or constructing meaning, according to scholars.
Written information on a
printed page is received by the retina, processed by the primary
visual cortex, and interpreted in Wernicke's area.
But when we "read" online (or "screen", in the new coinage), the
digitalized information is processed in a different way. Reading
online is not the same thing as reading on a paper surface in a book or
magazine or newspaper.
Reading on a print paper surface is a means of language acquisition,
of communication, and of sharing information and ideas. Screening on
the Internet is a horse
of a different color.
Readers of print paper texts use a variety of reading strategies to
assist with decoding (to translate symbols into sounds or visual
representations of language), and comprehension. Screening online uses
other strategies, and the information is processed by our brains in a
different way as well.
Reading text on print paper is now an important way for the general
population in many societies to access information and make meaning.
However, a new form of reading, called "screening" now takes place when a
person "reads" text on a computer screen or PDA screen or cellphone
screen. This form of reading, now called "screening", is a very
different form of communcation.
You have just "screened" your very first article online using this new
term. You are now an Internet screener. Congratulations, and welcome
to this amazing new world.
Comments are more than welcome, pro and con.
Last edited by danbloom on Tue Mar 03, 2009 12:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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