Quote:
Originally Posted by Sirtel
There are plenty of people for whom that statement is not true. People with vision problems, for example.
Moreover, "real" and "tangible" or "physical" are by no means the same thing. I would not take offense when someone said they only read physical books or paper books. I do take offense when someone says they read real books (in a conversation involving ebooks), implying that ebooks are somehow not real. That's insulting, no matter the context. There are plenty of nonphysical things in the world that are considered real nevertheless. But for some reason ebooks are not real, because they're not physical? Sorry, but that's totally illogical to me.
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It's not that people don't think eBooks are real, the reason they use "real books" is that they are differentiating between books ("real," or something tangible they can hold in their hands) and eBooks, a book that (to them) is not "real," and not something they can hold in their hands. It's specifically because they understand that there is a difference between the two that qualify "book" with "real." "Paper book" is a term people don't normally use because "paper book" brings to mind "paperback books," and they want to include both hardback books and paperback books when they differentiate between "real" books and eBooks.
I immediately understand that when people refer to "real books," they mean books that are not eBooks (or audio books).