Quote:
Originally Posted by QuantumIguana
When someone asks you if you read a book, they aren't asking you if you gazed at sheets of paper. If someone holds up a paper book and says "Did you read this book?" They probably don't mean to ask if you read this particular paper book, or even that you read it in paper format. What they mean is whether you read the content. Answering "no", because you read an e-book version would lead to confusion. Denying that Don Quixote is a book leads to absurdities.
The word book can and does often refer both to the media and the content. Before e-books, the distinction didn't matter much. Imagine an author sells 1,000 copies of their story in paper format and 1,000 copies in e-book format. If you asked that author how many books they sold, would they say 1,000 or 2,000? If they said 1,000, because only paper books are books, that would lead to confusion. Paper books are one definition of book, but they are only one definition. Most of the time, the format is simply irrelevant.
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It's that lack of precision that always makes me ask someone, "what real book are you reading, as opposed to any pseudo-ebook travesty you may have perverted your eyes with?"
It also annoys me to no end when someone says they watched a movie, but then it turns out that they just watched some fake "movie" on Netflix rather than hauled out a projector and reels.