You’ve just read a terrific paperback novel. Would you feel any differently about it if you’d the same words on the glowing screen of an electronic book? Martha and Grant discuss the social and psychological implications of books that run on batteries.

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A caller remembers an odd phrase from her childhood. If she asked too many questions, her mother would brush them off with the phrase “layers for meddlers and crutches for lame ducks.” Say what?

A Milwaukee listener is curious about an expression he uses to describe underlings who can’t seem to do something right: “You give ’em books, and all they do is eat the covers!”

Martha and Grant discuss the rise of the Great Japanese cell-phone novel.

Quiz Guy John Chaneski presents the hosts with a wacky puzzle based on two-word phrases containing the sounds “oo oo,” “ee ee,” and “aa aa.” As you might expect, animal hilarity ensues.

A retired theater professor wants to know why she keeps hearing the word “dramaturge” used in surprising new ways. Is “dramaturged” now a legitimate verb? Can the noun also refer to someone who adapts a play for particular production—and not just to the person who originally wrote it?

A caller from Down Under phones to say he’s annoyed when honorees declare they’re “humbled” by this or that award. He thinks it’s not only illogical, but smacks of insincerity.

A fair-haired listener has been puzzled by the origin of a word she’s heard all her life: “Tow-headed.” And no, it has nothing to do with the digits on one’s feet.

This week’s “Slang This!” contestant, John Schwaller, president of the State University of New York at Potsdam, ponders the possible meanings of the terms “donk” and “Baltimore wrench.” He offers his own favorite slang term, “snow snake.”

A Washington, D.C. caller wonders whether there’s a difference between the words “grey” and “gray.” Do they designate exactly the same thing? Why are they spelled differently.

A California man says his mother used to respond to his inquiries about what they were going to do by telling him playfully, “We’re going to Buxtehude!” Decades later, he wonders whether there really is a place called Buxtehude, or where in the world she got that phrase.

Grant shares his thoughts about the future of electronic books, and whether dog-eared pages with scribbles in the margins will one day go the way of the papyrus roll.

Read the original blog post and listen to this episode.

I can handle both formats of books: paper and pixel (i.e., electronic).
There are several advantages of using e-books:
• They aren’t as heavy as their pulpy cousins.
• The pages don’t tear.
• The pages don’t “age” over time.
• You can’t get papercuts.
• If you fall asleep while reading, you won’t accidentally slam the book shut and lose your place.
• Searching for content is a cinch.
• If you take notes you can do it in a notepad (esp. electronic); as opposed to in the margin.
• You can usually edit the content (one way or another) if something is: a) misspelled, b) out of date, or c) needing insertion due to either complete absence (e.g., of an entire page) or typographic oversight (e.g., “hat” pro “that”).
• They usually cost much less than paperbound (“paperbound”, I know that sounds weird) books.
• When ordering a book, you don’t have to wait 6-8 (or more) weeks for it to “arrive”.
• If you come across a word you don’t know (especially if it is very long and hard to remember how to spell) and if your computer/device has a contextual-menu feature, you can often just highlight the word and look it up online.
• You can have hyperlinks and anchors which save you time having to thumb through other books (which you might not have handy).
• If you want to give someone a copy of a particular book, you can “e” it to them (that is, send/transfer it to them electronically).
• One less tree to chop down (literally).

Of course, paper books are still preferable in many ways:
• You don’t need any extra equipment in order to read it.
• You don’t have to scroll to “navigate” while reading.
• The print is usually larger and more legible (although it depends).
• They don’t require you to download extra fonts.
• The images don’t need to be anti-aliased (unless they were created/printed with a computer).
• Less exposure to radiation (however negligible it may be when behind a monitor or electronic screen).
• You don’t have to wait for it to be platformed for your particular device/OS.
• You can read the original without having to worry about some ineffective OCR program having “misread” any obscure text. Mojibake anyone?
• If you drop one, you usually don’t have to have it repaired.
• You can usually read them around water (e.g., at a pool, in the bathtub—although I never do…).
• They can’t be accidentally deleted.
• They don’t crash.
• They burn longer, thereby providing more warmth on a cold night, ha-ha! (Totally kidding! )
• Each has its own particular smell (to whomever may care; myself being one).

Anyway, I doubt either will entirely replace the other. So, it seems we’ll just have to learn to live with both. GB? MB?

On important thing that Martha and Grant didn’t mention (perhaps because they didn’t know) is that the bad thing about The Amazon Kindle and other readers is that the books are “protected” with DRM (digital restrictions management). This prevents you from doing what is perfectly legal to do with paperback books - lend them to others! Also, these e-readres do not allow you, in most circumstances, to resell the book. So if you use these devices you are losing your rights!

More here: http://defectivebydesign.org/DRMEbookFlyer
and http://defectivebydesign.org/KindleSwindle

djotaku, I had no heard that! Let me get this straight: Does this mean that Amazon is fine selling used paper books, but not used digital material?

That’s terrible! (DRM) What is this world coming to? I’m fine with paperbacks, too! But I do hope (and anticipate) that DRM will be jettisoned sooner or later (the sooner the better).

They’re taxing our eyes and nervous systems, AAAAARRGGH! Fie upon it! How dare thee ask me to obey that filthy DRM? Nay, I say to thee! Naaaaaaaaaaay!

Hi Martha and Grant,
I get clasics to read on my Palm from the Project Gutenberg collection http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page. Project Gutenberg is a free repository of thousands of electonic books that are no longer copywritten.

I have been reading War and Peace for the last year-and-a-half. You see, I only read it in lines (or queues as some call them). If I am waiting for the grocery checkout, I pull out my palm and am transported to 19th century Russia.

Andy

Wordsmith said:

Anyway, I doubt either will entirely replace the other. So, it seems we’ll just have to learn to live with both. GB? MB?

Gigabyte & megabyte! Ha! :-p

“A caller from Down Under phones to say he’s annoyed when honorees declare they’re “humbled” by this or that award. He thinks it’s not only illogical, but smacks of insincerity.”

You know, I feel the same about the “apology” issue.
I don’t know if it is just that I notice it more now, but do you think that public figures are saying things (that sometimes are inappropriate, sometimes offensive and sometimes, and sometimes just opinions that not everybody agrees with). After they say it, they go back and apologise for whatever they say…don’t you think it is used too often to be always sincere? it is seen as acceptable, but I think that many times it does not make up for what it was told.
What do you think?
Mariana

felixblackcat said:
Gigabyte & megabyte! Ha! :-p

LOL!

“eat the covers”

On the show you mentioned 1985 as earliest known appearance of the “you give ‘em books and you give ‘em books and all they do is eat the covers”. I heard that phrase in DeLisle, MS (near Gulfport) in 1983 from a laboratory supervisor at the local DuPont plant. His name was Reggie and he was lamenting the lab techs’ performance. Unfortunately, I don’t know where he got the phrase. Reggie was from the Idlewild area in New York and had been living in Mississippi for a few years prior to 1983.

It’s a good phrase, now I’m curious as to its origin, so please report back on-air if you get a good lead.

-Bill

It’s funny, I would have instinctively thought “grey” to be slightly darker than “gray”.

Maybe it’s alphabetical order, and “grzy” would be nearly black…

For me, in the U.S., I still use grey, since that is how I learned to spell the word when I was kid coloring with my Crayola crayons. They may have changed it since, but I learned it then and have no inclination to change the spelling I use.

re: eat the covers

I first heard this as “You buy them books and you buy them books and all they do is eat the pages.”

This was when I got out of high school in 1975. My partner on the truck I worked on used to tell me that after I did something stupid.