I wasn't aware of the underlying ambiguity of the verb "to scan" as explained here:
Scan is another word that changed its meaning on the sly. As Jesse Sheidlower noted in a 1997 post at "Mavens' Word of the Day," "the sense 'to examine closely' is found by the mid sixteenth century, and was for a long time the main sense." By the 1920s, he said, scan had come to mean "read hastily; glance at," and nowadays we're surprised to hear it used to mean the opposite.
But what's most interesting about this, Sheidlower says, is that hardly anybody opposed the evolution of scan. The usage authorities were too busy condemning the spread of peruse as a synonym for "read" - a sense it had had since the 16th century - to fuss about scan. "The Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage," which blasted the 'loose' use of peruse, merely cautions against the confusion of the contradictory senses of scan." And the American Heritage usage panel disapproved of the casual peruse but embraced the casual scan.
Who knows why we let some changes slide by and grimly resist others of no greater significance? Peruse sounds more formal, and scan resembles skim; that alone might tempt us to assign the longer word to serious reading and let the short, snappy one lounge on the floor with a comic book. http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/06/14/the_word_turns_of_phrase/?page=2
scan = to read with attention; this word can overlap with "to skim" at times, but you're right that it usually means "to read more diligently," in the sense that the reader attends to every part of the text.
Expert Mother tongues: English, German Posts: 7848 Joined: September 26, 2003 Location: Canada
RE: Should we eliminate textbooks from schools today?
That was a bit confusing to follow. Apparently the article is about mechanically scanning an electronic page so that you can turn it into a printed hard copy. It is not about different mental processes involved in reading text. "Skimming" and "scanning" have not changed their meaning, from what I can tell. But "scanning" can also mean the thing that you do with a mouse or a scanner (when you turn hard copy into pdf or jpg, for example). I think I had to read the text a couple of times before catching on to what it was about. Did anyone else share my confusion (so I can feel a bit less stupid?)
However, the original post was about the suggestion that learning material could be in a different from that text books. I think that the Internet could be used to supplement and complete the contents of a textbook and that its potential is grossly under-used and under-exploited. The elimination of text books for the sake of tax dollars is cynical and not thought through.
Maxi
[Edited by Maxi Schwarz-Bastami on June 14, 2009 10:42 AM]
All that Mankind has done, thought,
gained or been: it is lying as in magic
preservation in the pages of Books.
–Thomas Carlyle
Books convey and preserve voices. Reading books from a time not our own is our most direct access to that time. Works of literature, like other art, have gone in and out of fashion, but once published, a writer’s work should remain for all generations to read. In the words of Joseph Addison, “Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation, as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.”
Imagine, then, a dystopian horror tale in which virtually all books from the past were destroyed. Unlike the censored society in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, old books owned by scattered eccentric individuals would be left alone, but only books from a narrow strip of the present would be publicly available for sale or lending. ... Even worse than censorship in which books are burned for content some deem objectionable, these books would be destroyed en masse, without individual consideration, only because they were not current.
That incredible scenario is actually playing out in terms of children’s books under a law meant to protect toddlers from lead contaminants in toys. Called the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), the law was passed in August 2008—quickly, without scrutiny, and nearly unanimously—in response to the Chinese lead toy scare of 2007. The act defines its mission so broadly as to cover all “children’s products,” including children’s books. ...
Forums Disclaimer: The views expressed in the forums are those of the authors and are not necessarily the views of the site owner and/or moderators. If the reader considers a post to cause offence, then she or he should address a complaint to the moderator of the forum concerned. The complaint should be dealt with within 24 hours, but please respect the fact that the moderator may be living in a different time zone. Use of the forums signifies your agreement with the Forum Posting Rules.
Language, Literature, Arts, Religion, Other 
TC Mobile |
Forum Settings |
Log On
Reply
Quote
Edit
Delete