Quote:
Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8
Thanks for the information, gentlemen.
Not to be argumentative, but just to offer some things for your consideration . . . .
I notice that both of you are in (and probably from) the U.K. I'm wondering if the word has a different shade of meaning/connotation there. Of course, I know both of you probably access a lot of U.S. websites, but I would think that most of them are U.K. websites. And that is where you would learn (from context, etc.) the meaning of the word.
I just did a quick search for "open textbooks." Here's a quote from the first hit that caught my eye, for a webpage from the California State University: "What are open textbooks? Open textbooks are typically authored by faculty and published on the web with the support of universities or new commercial companies. This new business model enables free online access to textbooks." ( http://als.csuprojects.org/free-etextbooks) (emphasis mine, G.). The point is, I think that I could go up and down the search hits and find that all of the websites, if they said anything at all about the subject, would say similar things.
I lack the time, and, frankly, the initiative, too, to do full research on the question. There's probably a specialized dictionary somewhere on the Internet which would give a definitive answer. But, offhand, I don't know where I would find it.
Let me add that even though I have a certain opinion about the word, I am open-minded about the issue (pun intended). |
The Open University is close to 50 years old, so very much antedates free web textbooks. In any case, that's the institution's name, so I don't understand the issue.