E-Book? Ebook?
Hyphen? No hyphen?
What’s in a word?
There is something very old-fashioned about the sound of the word(s) used to describe an electronic book.
Much like the way in which we still use the word ‘video’ today to describe moving images.
As a word, ‘video’ reminds me of watching dodgy copies of banned horror films on VHS in the 1980s.
Despite the fact that we use the word to mean something very different in 2019 ‘video’ just seems so old-fashioned.
For me, it is the associations.
The clunk of the door as you inserted the tape into the recorder/player.
The sound as the machine steadied itself.
The roll of the lines up the screen.
The occasional distortion as the sound synced.
The hang of the pause.
The song of the tape as it rewound in a different key to the one that played as you fast-forwarded past the adverts.
Do you remember these sounds?
Perhaps you have never heard them?
It is highly likely that you will never truly hear them again.
And we haven’t even started to think about another link in this word association game we are playing today.
Betamax.
BARNABY TAYLOR 