Hello everybody.
I wonder whether there is a specific word for a person who tries to read secretly the newspaper or magazine another person is reading -- for instance on a bus, train, etc.
Thank you very much.

Welcome, athenian.
My, what an interesting question! The term ill-mannered
comes to mind, but that is not a noun. I would call this
kind of person a snoop, maybe. A slang term could be
buttinsky, but that may apply more to conversation.

>I wonder whether there is a specific word for a person who tries to read secretly the newspaper or magazine another person is reading -- for instance on a bus, train, etc.

Cheapskate.

What I really hate is the arm reaching over my shoulder to fill in a box on the crossword puzzle. Or the guy muttering, "Can't you read ANY faster than that?"

> I wonder whether there is a specific word for a person who tries to read secretly the
> newspaper or magazine another person is reading


Any suggestions of a neologism for this? I came up with the word "intreader"?
(an intruder who reads and a reader who intrudes)

>is a specific word for a person who tries to read secretly the newspaper or magazine another person is reading


How about "supra-clavicle scrutineer"?

or "free-reader" - if they haven't paid their fare, they would be "free-rider/readers," but these would be specific to users of public transport.

And what is the correct name for the person who has bought the reading material and is being so used?

>is a specific word for a person who tries to read secretly the newspaper or magazine another person is reading

How about day-cribber. With no apologies to the Beatles.

Which reminds me. Yesterday I took the kids for a walk and there were some pre-teens in the park with a boom box. The noise coming from the boom box reminded me of the time I heard the delivery truck full of empty trash cans (bins) collide with the truckful of pigs. I made a comment to the kids that I felt no good music had been made since the day John Lennon was killed. Believe it or not, the kids asked, "Who's John Lennon?"

Hi, Athenian.

"Scram!", perhaps?

i think it's important to distinguish, at this point, between the two types of "intreaders".
one type looks away when you meet their (his) (her) (his/her) (hser) (heris) eyes, trying to pretend they were just passing from the advertisement behind your head to the scene outside the window, and the other gives you a geniune, vague, cheapskate smile.

i'm in the second category.

in addition, i think people with newspapers on trains should hold them up instead of hiding half the article under a fold in their laps.

>>"Who's John Lennon?"

Worse than that (could it be worse than not remembering Lennon?) is that they probably can't find Viet Nam on a map, identify the capital of half the U.S. states (or anyl the world's nations), recall who the second president os the U.S. was, who the prior U.S. president was, etc. etc. etc.

Is Dr. Dre their physician of choice? Is Eminem their favorite candy? Is Smashing Pumpkins their halloween activity of choice?

Sorry. Asides lead to other asides, and we are left wondering how we got here.

>>Worse than that (could it be worse than not remembering Lennon?) is that they probably can't find Viet Nam on a map, identify the capital of half the U.S. states .....

*sigh* Don't even get me started..... (maybe we should revive this topic in the Schools forum). Nah, never mind.

Meanwhile, on a cheerier note (I guess), my 17-year-old niece interviewed me for a paper she was writing on the Beatles. I asked her what course it was for. History.

AnnaStrophic,

You'll be glad to know that in a high school English class, we studied the lyrics to several Beatles songs (you can surely compile a literary list in moments) and their synergistic arrangement on their albums. This along side with Yeats, Longfellow, Whitman, and others. History, Literature, heck, maybe even Government, Economics, and P.E. Well, maybe not the P.E.

Worse than that (could it be worse than not remembering Lennon?) is that they probably can't find Viet Nam on a map, identify the capital of half the U.S. states (or anyl the world's nations), recall who the second president os the U.S. was, who the prior U.S. president was, etc. etc. etc.

I must say, I'm quite offended by the agism that has been plaguing this board of late. I, and the vast majority of my peers know who John Lennon was. I also know who Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr are. I'm well aware of the location of Vietnam, I know that John Adams was the second president, and I assure you, I can name, with little hesitation, all the state capitals. Perhaps the arrogance of the baby-boomers has overshadowed the possibility that there exists some intelligence in the masses younger than 30. Yes, I agree that grade inflation has become a growing problem in our schools, but this doesn't mean that we don't know who Abraham Lincoln was.

And by the way, I can't stand rap.

>>, I'm quite offended by the agism that has been plaguing this board of late.

I apologize to those I have offended. I didn't intend to stereotype younger generations. I meant to comment on the "pre-teens" mentioned in the anecdote. My premise was that some pre-teens are enveloped in a world of pop culture (hence, the pop music references) and are unfortunately sheltered from some things of larger cultural significance. Regrettably, I used unoriginal examples.

As for disparaging the younger generations, I did not intend the comments to be that far-reaching. I'm of your generation, and I hope consumerism won't overshadow us.

The explanation is rather simple: Education is connected with economic wellfare. And we know that the gap between "have"s and "havenot"s is widening steadily.

A gentle reminder to my fellow baby-boomers: the world did not in fact begin with us. My teens cannot name the individual Beatles, and I couldn't care less. Our generation, as a whole, was no better at naming our parents'
idols than our kids are at naming ours.

Now, prior to the inventions of movies and radio, I would venture a guess that younger generations might have been able to name most of their parents' idols. Information did not come from a wide variety of sources back then. Also,
people didn't travel (and thus be exposed to new learning) as easily at that time as we do now.
What do you-all think about this theory?

I think the reason behind it has more to do with the need for rapid turnover of idols to boost sales of records, cassettes, or CDs or whatever. If idols stay around you don't need to buy the recordings, you can just listen to your parents' or elder siblings', if you have any.

Bingley

>>the need for rapid turnover of idols to boost sales

Interesting and enlightening perspetive on the economics of turnover. I add that IMO current bands and groups produce far less songs per year than the last generation's artists. It seems that every other album today includes remixes, remakes, and live performances of the band's older hits rather than complete (and risky) new songs.

Brandon

I concur, and that is not even mentioning the pervasive "sampling" which surely means to steal in some lexicons. It's the result of future shock or, in the case of some bands, future shlock. The re-made music cannot be coming from the soul ..... more likely from the wallet. What is the word for terms like sample which are an innocuous or even bloated way to describe something that is nasty or even criminal? I should know this. This phenomenon rankles me greatly.


michaelo

have you ever noticed how many people are involved in the making of a cd these days, and how clear the sounds are?
of course there are artists who use sampling cds without even changing the sound, artists who remake - not arrange - songs just old enough to be out of the reach of teenagers' memories, not to mention artists who rip off, repeat, regurgitate just to make money.
but that's not new! heavens above, artists, musicians and writers have been borrowing for ever.
we don't live in the two guitars, bass and drums era anymore. sound is filtered through computers, mixers the size of football fields, corrected, effected, tuned, detuned etc etc etc.
teenagers have terrific taste. i believed my own taste at that age, and i believe the taste of teenagers today.

p.s. sampling is also "quoting" and often brings a beautiful but forgotten phrase back to public attention.

>>What is the word for terms like sample which are an innocuous or even bloated way to describe something that is nasty or even criminal?

michaelo, I think the term euphemism applies here.
It rankles me, too--it seems the whole world is run by greed, and I hate it. Whatever happened to doing something just because it is the right thing to do?

I was thinking of something akin to newspeak (Orwell).

I don't buy many CDs or cassettes these days, so I'm a bit lost here. What actually is this sampling? Some sort of cover version?

Bingley

sampling is quoting phrases or sounds from other sources.
any good music/electronic store should have a selection of sampling cds.
these cds contain recordings made by professional musicians that can be used by anyone who buys the cd in their own recording.
with digital recording becoming more sophisticated, it's quite easy to make a song around sampled sounds, using very little original input.
what people may be objecting to in this thread is the use by professional musicians of others' tunes, chord progressions, guitar riffs etc. in their own songs. this can seem like plagiarism.
i repeat that it's not that simple, and that sampling is the latest incarnation of the time honoured practice of arranging. perhaps because in sampling the sound is often identical to the original it appears the new version is cashing in on the old.
but often reggae, hip hop or rap versions of an old song are really creative arrangements.
you can't blame sampling for that other time honoured practice, stealing!

>>Worse than that (could it be worse than not remembering Lennon?) is that they probably can't find Viet Nam on a map, identify the capital of half the U.S. states (or anyl the world's nations), recall who the second president os the U.S. was...

>>Is Smashing Pumpkins their halloween activity of choice?


I hate to bring up the whole Canada vs. USA but truly I can't identify the capitals of all or any US states, or identify their past presidents. But I can find Viet Nam on a map, and I do know who the Beatles are.
PS. I'm a "The Smashing Pumpkins" fan, and in their case, "smashing" is not a verb; it's an adjective.
(quite appropriate for this message board)

>identify the capitals of all or any US states

Just catching up on the 197 posts on this part of the board since I last looked and realised that I can't do this to well either. I can cope with most of the eastern seaboard and a bit of the west coast before I get stumped. It would be interesting to see how many people from the UK think that Orlando is the capital of Florida (the state with the highest number of UK visitors).

On the other hand, I can name all the European capitals and can put a pin in a map to show the location of Paris (apparently the vast majority of American teenagers can't). I'll go and check out how my own children fare.

By the way - if you start off with Rolling Stones do you end up with Smashing Pumpkins?

Subject: Re: Is there a word for it?

>identify the capitals of all or any US states

Just catching up on the 197 posts on this part of the board since I last looked and realised that I can't do this too well either. I can cope with most of the Eastern Seaboard and a bit of the West Coast before I get stumped. It would be interesting to see how many people from the UK think that Orlando is the capital of Florida (the state with the highest number of UK visitors).

On the other hand, I can name all the European capitals and can put a pin in a map to show the location of Paris (apparently the vast majority of American teenagers can't). I'll go and check out how my own children fare.

By the way - if you start off with Rolling Stones do you end up with Smashing Pumpkins?

identify the capitals of all or any US states

I think that's one advantage of living in a small country - one is forced to learn more about bigger ones. I think I could still name at least 30 state capitals, probably 3 or 4 Canadian provincial capitals, and most European national capitals. The drawback is that this national inferiority complex means that like most NZers I know shamefully little about the hstory of my own country. On the other hand, I once saw an American tourist interviewed on television upon arrival in Auckland who was stunned to learn that the Sydney Harbour Bridge did not link Sydney and Auckland!

"Nationalism is an infantile disease, the measles of humanity" - Albert Einstein

> By the way - if you start off with Rolling Stones do you end up with Smashing Pumpkins?

or maybe you jump to another thread and find that Rolling Thtones gather no Maths (or only enough to check their bank balance!)

My wife engages is this activity regularly. Mostly reading from my computer screen while I answer e-mail. I call it "eavesreading."

Welcome, Stu! (By the way, do you realize that the use of the word disco rather dates you?)

Good thing I'm not married to your wife--I'd strangle her
with her own pearls!

Psst--I liked disco!

I used to know a fellow who had a black leather biker jacket with Disco Stu written in chrome studs on the back. I never did get a clear answer as to what it was all about. Care to enlighten? I thought it might have something to do with punk rock (first wave).

michaelo

"Eavesreading" works for me!

>I add that IMO current bands and groups produce far less songs per year than the last generation's artists. It seems that every other album today includes remixes, remakes, and live performances of the band's older hits rather than complete (and risky) new songs.<

The same is at least equally true of classical music albums, and of classical and modern live music, yet in these cases no-one objects.
Perhaps we should distinguish the performer from the composer a little better. A piece can be a new piece or an existing piece differently (creatively and originally?) interpreted. So the sampling william is talking about (Bingley, I'm william's age and it was news to me too!), is actually interpreting rather than creating.

Isn't Disco Stu a character on "The Simpsons"?

Can't reach me here? E-mail me duskydreamer@icqmail.com or ICQ me 71367484.

>rather dates you?

He does? I guess he's on the rebound. I had dinner with King Potato and Queen Potato just recently, and after dinner we were having a quiet drink when in came Princess Potato with stars in all of her eyes.

"Mother, Father," she gushed, "I'm engaged to Dan Rather!"

Queen Potato fainted dead away and King Potato intoned solemnly, "You can't marry him, he's just a commentator."

>It would be interesting to see how many people from the UK think that Orlando is the capital of Florida (the state with the highest number of UK visitors). [posted before Nov 2000, try looking in threaded mode!]

Funny how one's knowledge of the world is shaped by events. It think a few more Brits may know the correct answer to this question now. [posted Nov 2000]

a specific word for a person who tries to read secretly the newspaper or magazine another person is reading -- for instance on a bus, train, etc.


What an interesting thread that Jo has kindly unearthed for us.

I'm going to plump for Disco_Stu's eavesreading I think. Quite a nice musical sound to it as well as it being possible to guess what it means.

(Sorry Avy! "intreading" doesn't work for me.)