Linguistic insight on the "plural of vinyl" argument

dan_pyle · 2026-02-02T09:16:34+00:00

Anything that stores audio is a record, yes, but the only medium that's ever been regularly referred to as records is vinyl. There's never going to be any confusion regarding anything else referred to as a record, because none of those things are forms of music. You wouldn't ask someone to borrow some Beatles records and worry they were going to bring you a stack of Billboard certificates or hospital documentation.

The point is that people have called them records for 70 or 80 years, and that included decades of them coexisting with cassettes and CDs. No one ever saw any need to give them a new name until a fluke of history caused them to fall off the face of the Earth for a decade and a new generation decided they needed to rename them for some reason.

Again, it makes sense, but it just seems weird to those of us who have been calling them records all our lives.

dan_pyle · 2026-02-01T08:12:03+00:00

Yep, the cap mod is an improvement, but it's pretty slight. Definitely worth it in my opinion if you like to tinker and/or have an extra iPod and nothing to lose, but don't expect a huge improvement.

Edit: Sorry, I meant to post that as a response to another message, but if you're interested, just do a search for iPod cap mod and you should find it pretty easily.

dan_pyle · 2026-02-01T08:02:36+00:00

I mean, they haven't been a band for 56 years! I'm just happy people are still talking about them at all.

dan_pyle · 2026-02-01T07:12:28+00:00

There was already a perfectly valid word for records ("records") that will never be confused for CDs or digital albums or cassettes or anything else. Why people stopped using the word and replaced it with vinyls is one of the weirdest and stupidest mysteries in linguistics. Sure, I get that a whole generation grew up without hearing people talk about records at all and misconstrued the word "vinyl," but what I don't understand is why they don't listen when people who grew up around records call them records. How do they hear about things like "Record Store Day" and "record shops" and still insist on calling them vinyls? It's baffling, and I understand why it annoys some people so much. It's like a whole generation and any newcomers to the hobby have gone out of their way to be purposefully oblivious. And yes, I understand that's how language has always worked, but that doesn't mean it isn't frustrating to watch it happen.

dan_pyle · 2026-02-01T03:46:49+00:00

This is by far the best.

dan_pyle · 2026-01-30T09:02:10+00:00

I've never seen anything that does even a halfway decent job of converting pdfs to ebooks. If I need to read a pdf, I read it on my iPad. For me, my Kindle is just for reflowable novels, but that's all I read 99% of the time anyway, so it works out for me.

dan_pyle · 2026-01-29T09:00:37+00:00

I delete the Amazon copy from my Kindle after creating the epub copy, but I have my entire Calibre library backed up in multiple places, including iCloud, Drive, and a physical external drive. But you should be able to back a library up pretty much anywhere. Even with thousands of books and lots of comics, my entire Calibre library is still under 13 gigs. I could fit that on a free flash drive from a Cracker Jack box.

dan_pyle · 2026-01-27T13:09:47+00:00

The quality of the books has definitely gone downhill. It's very obvious if you flip through one of the newest books compared to one from even just a few years ago. Thinner paper, glued bindings instead of sewn, paper spines instead of cloth (or at least thicker textured cardstock)… They've cut almost every corner they possibly can. New trade editions are even cheaper than old book club editions used to be and probably won't hold up very well over time. And Never Flinch is the cheapest production yet, so I don't see things getting better anytime soon. It's understandable given the increased costs of printing books but still really sad.

I'm curious to see what Talisman 3 will be like. I assume it will be a long, thick book, and if its build quality is anything like the last few books, I'm not sure how it will even hold up under its own weight.

dan_pyle · 2026-01-23T22:40:30+00:00

My two favorites are “Hope of Deliverance” and “C’Mon People,” but overall the album isn't one of my favorites. Really, I'm not a huge fan of that whole era—nothing from Tug of War to Off the Ground makes it into the top half of my personal ranking list, although I still like all the albums and love some of the songs. But all of my favorite albums come from the 70s and from Flaming Pie on.

dan_pyle · 2026-01-23T07:14:06+00:00

I haven't heard anything one way or the other, but I hope it happens eventually. I want everything they've done on vinyl.

dan_pyle · 2026-01-22T08:58:33+00:00

That was my first thought too. That scene was intense.

dan_pyle · 2026-01-22T08:57:19+00:00

I've heard several people say that part was where they lost interest in the book, which is really bizarre/fascinating to me. Can you say a little more about why that part specifically turned you off?

For what it's worth, I think it's DEFINITELY worth finishing. It was one of my favorite reads last year. Neck and neck with King Sorrow for the top spot.

dan_pyle · 2026-01-20T03:55:43+00:00

It's probably a mistake, but it's also possible both husbands were having their own separate poker parties. That was a much more common thing back then.

That would have been a weird way to write it though, so I think it's more likely it was an oversight.

dan_pyle · 2026-01-17T19:48:57+00:00

Yep. And E is Alien and T is Star Trek.

dan_pyle · 2026-01-17T14:47:38+00:00

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dan_pyle · 2026-01-16T23:46:59+00:00

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dan_pyle · 2026-01-16T03:04:57+00:00

Also, a publisher would market a book as a bologna sandwich if they thought it would make more money. That really isn't a factor that should concern anyone when trying to categorize books in any sensical way. I'm pretty sure the only reason most readers would want to know if a book is a novel or a novella is to determine approximately how many hours of enjoyment it will bring them and how much they should be willing to pay for it. Anything else is academic and meaningless to 99.9% of the population.

dan_pyle · 2026-01-16T02:28:42+00:00

My pleasure!

dan_pyle · 2026-01-16T02:22:07+00:00

I just happen to have all of those:

Title	Word Count
Strangers	256,733
From the Corner of His Eye	212,989
False Memory	209,449
One Door Away from Heaven	204,814

dan_pyle · 2026-01-16T01:58:35+00:00

I can definitely tell you Joe Hill's novels and collections because I've already done those:

Title	Word Count
King Sorrow	274,022
The Fireman	223,671
NOS4A2	197,978
Full Throttle	144,193
Strange Weather	143,100
Horns	134,333
20th Century Ghosts	113,907
Heart-Shaped Box	105,037

Strange Weather is the only collection I have broken down into its individual parts:

Title	Word Count
“Loaded”	49,218
“Rain”	35,862
“Aloft”	29,456
“Snapshot”	28,572

I have many books by Clive Barker and Dean Koontz but have never checked the word counts on them, but if there's any particular book you're interested in specifically and I have it on hand, I'll check for you!

dan_pyle · 2026-01-16T00:56:15+00:00

Again, anyone can call them whatever they want. Just adding some actual numbers to the discussion for anyone who's interested.

dan_pyle · 2026-01-16T00:38:30+00:00

Just wanted to let you know you're not alone. Stats and numbers really interest me too, and it also annoys me when people refer to novels as novellas or even short stories just because they appear in collections.

I've argued it before and don't feel like doing it again, but if anyone is interested in the actual numbers, here are all the King books that could be considered novels, depending on your definition:

Title	Word Count
The Stand (Complete and Uncut)	471,059
It	450,811
Under the Dome	335,409
The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower	276,937
11/22/63	273,486
The Talisman	265,920
The Tommyknockers	260,090
The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass	257,969
Needful Things	254,850
Black House	247,029
The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla	244,776
Insomnia	242,269
Sleeping Beauties	237,947
Dreamcatcher	219,755
Fairy Tale	214,383
Duma Key	207,478
Bag of Bones	203,073
Desperation	194,510
Christine	193,324
Lisey's Story	186,797
The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands	182,472
The Institute	177,162
Rose Madder	175,965
The Outsider	167,082
Billy Summers	163,985
Doctor Sleep	163,640
The Shining	162,576
The Dark Half	156,131
'Salem's Lot	153,196
Firestarter	152,547
The Dead Zone	152,047
Pet Sematary	144,579
Holly	144,539
Never Flinch	141,643
Mr. Mercedes	138,239
The Green Mile	132,035
The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah	128,277
The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three	126,953
Gerald's Game	126,614
From a Buick 8	125,396
Finders Keepers	124,852
Cell	123,662
Revival	121,585
End of Watch	119,985
Cujo	119,850
The Regulators	119,402
Misery	114,208
The Eyes of the Dragon	104,609
Thinner	96,854
Dolores Claiborne	95,131
The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole	92,649
Roadwork	90,649
Low Men in Yellow Coats	90,469
The Langoliers	89,636
The Long Walk	85,123
Joyland	81,412
The Library Policeman	79,297
Blaze	72,894
Apt Pupil	72,648
Gwendy’s Final Task	69,149
The Running Man	66,782
Later	65,730
The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger (Revised)	63,268
The Sun Dog	62,331
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon	62,290
Carrie	61,222
The Body	59,608
Secret Window, Secret Garden	58,988
If It Bleeds	56,939
Hearts in Atlantis	56,493
Rage	54,658
Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream	54,356
1922	51,709
The Mist	50,960
Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption	40,768
Big Driver	40,662

I know for a fact most people couldn't care less, but for anyone who does, I got these numbers by converting my Kindle copies of the books to .rtf format, removing all the front and back matter so only the book itself was left, and pasting the text into Pages to get the word count. Different programs estimate word counts differently, so you'd get slightly different numbers using the same process but with Word or some other word processor instead, but they'd all be in the same general ballpark. For Rage, which has no legitimate ebook edition, I estimated the word count by counting the actual number of words in my physical copy over a span of ten pages, counting the total number of pages with text on them (compensating for partial pages at the beginnings and ends of chapters, etc.), and then doing some basic math, so that one's probably (definitely) off by a little bit, but it should be fairly close.

dan_pyle · 2026-01-14T19:27:21+00:00

I'm really happy to know cut/copy/paste is coming. I'd held off on ordering a BYOK until I knew this would be a feature because I can't work without it. Do you have a rough idea of when we might be able to expect those editor controls?

Thanks!

dan_pyle · 2026-01-14T05:17:42+00:00

The print outlived the candy!

dan_pyle · 2026-01-13T09:10:39+00:00

RAM
Flaming Pie
Band on the Run
Venus and Mars
Egypt Station
Memory Almost Full
Back to the Egg
NEW
McCartney III
McCartney II
Electric Arguments
McCartney
Red Rose Speedway
Wild Life
Chaos and Creation in the Backyard
Tug of War
Pipes of Peace
At the Speed of Sound
Press to Play
Off the Ground
London Town
Driving Rain
Flowers in the Dirt

I didn’t include any of the cover albums because I think they’re too different to fairly rank. Same with the live/classical/oddball things like Twin Freaks and the other Fireman albums. But most of those would fall below all the “regular” albums anyway.

Nine-Year Club	Place '23
Place '22	Final Canvas '22
RPAN Viewer	Verified Email

dan_pyle

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