Quote:
Originally Posted by DuckieTigger
But then, the word book means both, content and medium. Or rather content and physical object containing the medium
|
Yes, within the framework that an important final value of the book is its specific content. But really not all of the value: an important value intrinsic in "book" is the technical one - the ability to have them books (to finally produce them).
But the term 'book' is supposed to indicate "an object containing /some/ content", not just a separate content.
You are either using 'medium' in a sense different from mine, or I may understand that with 'ebook' you mean the file.
An ebook is a medium which may contain etexts.
I feel that to include the electronic file as a medium is borderline (and a very high abstraction of the "book", there where the quota leaves you with little air), for a few reasons such as that with a file (an "efile", oh my) even the creation of the medium is pretty abstract. Not to mention its aspect, the ability to visualize it. I have not thought about it thoroughly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DuckieTigger
It is so much easier now with ebooks that there is a clear distinction. If I want to read, it is usually a bad idea to pick up my wife's book, since it won't have my books on it. Plus, I don't have to share my book, because she can have a copy of the same book on her book.  |
There you clearly mean the "file". I would rather say that «she can have a copy of the same
text on her book»...
Sorry Leebase, a very good one was raised, with this terminological investigation - checking brought me surprises.
EDIT:
The confusion between medium and content in the use of 'book' comes from the fact that supports based in the vegetal realm had unchangeable content - "that book" meant "that text", and when somebody "wrote a book" they did actually produce a heap of "material", literally (curiously enough, more strongly than in painting - canvas were more easily reused). To refer to some book meant some specific text. But this is exactly what has changed with electronic support. After ebooks, the correlation between a support instance and specific text has vanished. This is why to confuse medium and content nowadays using the term 'book' is a superstition - times have changed but consolidated relations of ideas, no more valid, are sticky.