[danbloom]

And just to play the Devil's Advocate, a reporter at the New York Times, who disagrees with me completely, and has told me so in a private email -- that's David Pogue, for those who know him, brilliant guy, great writer, ace reporter -- he said to me: "well, if you really think there might be a need for a new word for reading, then why don't you also start a campaign to find a new word for writing on a keyboard, because that is NOT really writing with a pencil or a pen. We said TYPING when we wrote on typewriters, but now we say WRiTING again for the kind of writing we do on screens and keyboards and emails. Why don't you fight for a new word for screen writing, too, then?"

I told him I was not concerned about as new word for writing on keyboards or screens. But I see his point, his analog point. Just not a concern of mine.

BUT NOTICE the prompt on Gmail and other Email screens says: COMPOSE MAIL. It does not say WRITE MAIL. It uses the word COMPOSE. COMPOSE? COMPOSE MUSIC, no? Why doesn't the email window prompt say WRITE MESSAGE? or WRITE EMAL? Who chose this word COMPOSE instead of WRITE?