The word liseuse being used outside of MobileRead?

[vivaldirules]

"I loath [sic] this word personally."

Loathe, verb: to feel disgust or intense aversion for; abhor

Gee, that's a pretty intense response to just a word. I think I'm kinda starting to like it now.

[GeneS]

Please add me to the "Let's please not use the word" column. It seems (to me) an affectation in English and very imprecise in French.

[GeoffC]

it rather makes me think of something that Liz uses .....

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

Eworks for me! Or would the ewoks object?

Ewoks are cute and I reckon they'd be fine with it, but I think Uncle George would come after us if we started calling our Liseuses Ewoks.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by GeoffC

it rather makes me think of something that Liz uses .....

Liz Taylor? If it's good enough for Liz it's good enough for moi.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by omk3

Those are not names either, they are just descriptions. And no they are not excessively techy, they are excessively pedestrian, so that no one gets confused by the excessively techy objects they are describing.

Okay, let's try it this way-- which of these seem like more rational, practical, logical sentences?


Set one:

"Where's your DVD player, I brought some DVDs with me."

"My CD player scratched my new CD!"

"I just found a box of old records, but I threw away my record player!"



Set two:

"Where's your gleegsnog, I brought some DVDs with me."

"My blamtookle scratched my new CD!"

"I just found a box of old records, but I threw away my zlaxtope!"

[GeoffC]

seems quite logical to me .....

[omk3]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

Okay, let's try it this way-- which of these seem like more rational, practical, logical sentences?


Set one:

"Where's your DVD player, I brought some DVDs with me."

"My CD player scratched my new CD!"

"I just found a box of old records, but I threw away my record player!"



Set two:

"Where's your gleegsnog, I brought some DVDs with me."

"My blamtookle scratched my new CD!"

"I just found a box of old records, but I threw away my zlaxtope!"

Set two is more fun
Set one has a lot of repetition, not very graceful.

And of course, you watch movies and news on your television, not on your movie player, news player, or whatever.
You bake cakes in the oven, not the cake baker.
You write your notes with a pen, not a note writer.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

Okay, let's try it this way-- which of these seem like more rational, practical, logical sentences?


Set one:

"Where's your DVD player, I brought some DVDs with me."

"My CD player scratched my new CD!"

"I just found a box of old records, but I threw away my record player!"



Set two:

"Where's your gleegsnog, I brought some DVDs with me."

"My blamtookle scratched my new CD!"

"I just found a box of old records, but I threw away my zlaxtope!"

Actually, in the early 80's video players were more commonly referred to by the format they played, which where in essence alien words.

"My Betamax chewed up the tape."

"I just found a box of old tapes, but I threw away my VHS."

"The heads went on my VHS last night, do you have a butter knife so I can reach in and scrape the sides to get it playing again?" (An old trick, but it worked every time.)

Also the Walkman was used to describe every single last personal cassette player. Boombox for any portable machine that was not wearable, Hi-Fi, for anything that had an LP player and tape-to tape, Speccy instead of personal computer....the list is almost endless of words without practical meaning being adopted to describe more practical appliances.

Language would be very poor if we were relegated to the instantly meaningful or practical (if anything, language is impractical, imprecise and fraught with double meanings).

[captcrouton]

In my house, we called the video cassette player a VCR, which technically is incorrect though it probably did record. We just never used it as such.

I don't like liseuse because it looks French. I don't know just how to pronounce it, but would choose lice-YOOS if I were reading it aloud. I hear "head lice" in that, and it already makes my head itch.

I'm not against the French. I like French Fries, French Toast, etc. I looked up the words that we adapted from the French and "abbreviation" is in there. I doesn't look French to me, and so I don't have a reaction to it. This is where liceuse fails me.

The other backlash against the word is that it gives the e-reader a high-falutin' name. Like that toilet that sprays water into your unmentionables that I don't know how to spell... because it's French.

English speaking people who drop French words in their vocabulary come across as being elitist, I think. I think of Miss Piggy automatically, but that probably says alot about me.

Some I'm against it, but I don't care that much that I'd fight it. I'll just stick with "Kindle" when talking about mine. Or e-reader if someone needs clarity.

[GlennD]

Originally Posted by captcrouton

I don't like liseuse because it looks French. I don't know just how to pronounce it, but would choose lice-YOOS if I were reading it aloud. I hear "head lice" in that, and it already makes my head itch.

I'm not sure how to pronounce it either, but I'd assume it rhymes with 'masseuse'. Which doesn't invoke reading to me, either. It makes me wonder who is rubbing what.

But I'm just an ignorant American.

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by GlennD

I'm not sure how to pronounce it either, but I'd assume it rhymes with 'masseuse'. Which doesn't invoke reading to me, either. It makes me wonder who is rubbing what.

But I'm just an ignorant American.

*wipes tears*&

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

A small group of geeks created a tag and used it. It filled a descriptive void, and became part of common usage. This happens in living languages with changing technologies.

We have a cluster of devices, all designed to read formatted electronic images of paper books as their primary function. English does not have a unique word that describes these devices, that does not already have other common usages. Most of the suggested words not unique, either being defined as existing formats (confusion), or don't distinguish between the device and the images being read/displayed, or flat out being confused with it's analog predecessor.

In France, they had the same problem, and they created a word to specifically describe the devices in question. Some of us have picked up the word from francophones, because it fills a lexicographic in the English language, and is short (2 syllables). Furthermore, being a recent import, it has <no> overlap with any other term currently in use.

If this is a bother, then the people who are offended by it need to create a unique term for use in English to describe these devices, and for popular usage, it needs to be two syllables or less, and have <no> overlap with existing technology.

(Note, the term e-book (with or without hyphen) is now a worldwide term for the digital image of a book. nobody confuses it with any other usage. The readers of e-books need a word with the same level of uniqueness.)

Of course, some people like me may still use the French word, just as a bon mot.

The term used mostly is eBook (note the capital B). As for needing a word to describe our readers, if we are to find such a word, we need to find a word that's never been in existence. It's not going to work to shoehorn what our readers are into an existing word. This silly word already have meanings that are not fitting. eReader already has a meaning. So that's out.

What these devices are currently are Electronic Document Display Device or in shorthand, EDDD.

Have you used your EDDD today?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That is, regretably, incorrect. The word "liseuse" was not invented for this purpose. It's a word with many meanings in French, including "reading lamp", "reading desk", "book jacket", "a lady's bed jacket", "paper knife", and "a woman reader". Moreover, it's not even universally used in French - one finds the word "lecteur" (literally "reader") used at least as often.

So the situation in French is at least as confused as it is in English, and there really does seem to be no justification for attempting to import a French word, when "eBook reader" or "eReader" has become the standard used in English.

eReader already means something, so using it inappropriately is not going to work. The only way to really do this is to create a new word.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by AprilHare

It's already been imported! And I like it

And it's just been exported because it doesn't have a valid passport er definition.
.