E-books Compared

11 June 2009

Ann Kirschner decided to conduct an experiment: which was the best way to read Dickens’s Little Dorrit? Paperback, audiobook, Amazon Kindle or its larger cousin the Kindle DX, or iPhone? The results are somewhat surprising.

As one might expect, the tried-and-true paperback fared well. It was easy, convenient, and one had the ability to make and keep marginal notes.

The audiobook version also did well—although audiobook quality is highly variable depending on the skills and appropriateness of the narrator. Kirschner particularly liked the fact that the narrative pace was out of her hands. She was along for the ride, unable to skim or skip ahead, which immersed her more fully into the story. Audiobooks also let you do other activities, like jogging or cooking, while listening.

The surprise comes with the comparison between Kindle and iPhone. The Kindle just didn’t measure up in Kirschner’s opinion. The Kindle’s battery life was nice, but the larger screen was not compelling enough to justify its use. Reading on the iPhone’s smaller screen was not a problem and the fact that your iPhone is always with you is a killer advantage. It’s not that the Kindle is bad; it’s just that the good doesn’t balance out with the inconvenience of having to cart around yet another electronic device. Plus, any Kindle e-book is also available for the iPhone.

I’ve long been skeptical of e-books, thinking that there was a place for electronic publications, but that they would never really replace the printed word. The printed newspaper and many magazines and journals might disappear, as would print versions of dictionaries and encyclopedias, but paper would remain the medium of choice for novels and other works. Now, having had an iPhone for nearly a year and having played with my friends’ Kindles (I don’t own one myself), I’m beginning to doubt my original conclusion. Print may indeed be disappearing. 

Simon Singh and Free Speech

11 June 2009

One of the most important and the most chilling stories about the future of free speech is playing out in the British courts. Science writer Simon Singh has been sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association for calling chiropractic “bogus.” Singh lost in the lower courts and is appealing. His chances of winning are slim, as British libel laws are notoriously plaintiff-friendly. Worse still, one can sue in British courts if only one of the readers of the alleged libel is in Britain, making the UK the venue of choice for any organization that wants to silence its critics. If the British libel laws are allowed to stand, we are facing a new wave of censorship, this time via libel laws, that will allow corporations, trade associations, cults—any organization with pockets deep enough to hire lawyers—to silence their critics.

Singh had the temerity to actually tell the truth: that chiropractic is a bunch of woo with little or no real evidence to support its claims of actually being beneficial to people (beyond the benefits of the placebo effect). For this, he is losing a very large amount of money. For even if he wins, the legal fees will be ruinous. (There probably is some kind of legal defense fund, but still...)

There is some good news, though. The British Chiropractic Association has begun to tell its member practitioners to remove all their bogus claims from their web sites and to stop advertising themselves as medical professionals.

Mark Liberman over at Language Log has a good summary of the Singh story with many relevant links.

(I normally avoid political topics here on wordorigins.org, but this one is important enough that I can’t ignore it. The Singh case and the travesty that are the British libel laws strike at the very heart of how we conduct open and honest discourse in a free society. Besides, it’s non-partisan. As you can probably tell from this post, I have a strong opinion about chiropractic and other alternative “medical” disciplines, but whether or not chiropractic actually works is not the point of this post. I’d be just as much opposed to the silencing of advocates of chiropractic.)

Book Review: Origins of the Specious

10 June 2009

There are a lot of books about language out there, but it is rare to find one that combines both fun and rigorous scholarship. Usually, a book is either written for a general audience and lacks notes and bibliography, making it all but useless for anyone who is halfway serious about the subject. Or it is a dry, scholarly tome, of little interest to all but the most diehard language bugs. Patricia T. O’Conner’s and Stewart Kellerman’s Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language is one of those rare books that hits the sweet spot, combining a light-hearted and easy style with rigorous research and useful notes. Any language lover should put this one near the top of their must-read list.

In ten chapters, O’Conner and Kellerman run the gamut of language myths, debunking them with grace and solid arguments. The discuss the differences between British and American English, explaining for example why Brits tend to drop their Rs. The chapter on grammar myths explains why there is nothing wrong with a split infinitive or ending a sentence with a preposition. They take on words that have become bete noires, like ain’t and literally. Etymological myths are taken on, from the whole nine yards to cat o’ nine tails. Bad words, eponyms, and faux French pronunciations like niche get their due. Politically correct verbiage, like herstory, is dealt with, as are malapropisms, like in high dungeon.

The style is fun and the research is impeccable. Best of all, it’s got notes. Notes are essential for a book like this to be taken seriously. You can see why O’Conner and Kellerman make the claims that they do. And while it’s impossible to write a book like this and not make some kind of factual mistake, I couldn’t find any. The closest thing to an error I could find was calling herstory a standard term. It’s common enough in feminist writing, but found almost nowhere else, so calling it “standard” is a stretch. Just because it can be found in a dictionary doesn’t mean it’s standard. If that’s the biggest objection I could find, the authors are doing something right.

Origins of the Specious, by Patricia T. O’Conner & Stewart Kellerman. Random House, 2009. 288 pages. $22.00.

Nunberg on KQED Forum

3 June 2009

UC Berkeley linguist and NPR contributor Geoffrey Nunberg was interviewed on KQED’s Forum radio program on 27 May. It’s an interesting discussion touching on a variety of topics, including changes in political speech from the Bush to Obama administrations, whether um is a word, and whether or not Pluto should be called a “planet.” It’s definitely worth a listen.