Beetle, kindle, nook: Old words are not dead

"En er Jörmunrekkr konungr sá haukinn..." What's the language? It's actually the earliest form of Danish, Icelandic and Norwegian, which are together called "Old Norse". Translated into English, the sentence means "But when King Jörmunrekkr saw the hawk..." I found it at a great website called Old Norse for Beginners.

No, I'm not learning Old Norse, but I have learned two Old Norse words recently. The first one is kyndill, meaning "torch" or "candle". It became the English verb "to kindle", which means to set something alight — in other words, make it burn. My second Old Norse word is nook, which means a quiet, private place. The fascinating thing about these words, both of which are more than 1,000 years old, is that they are now at the centre of a 21st-century revolution that's going to change forever the way we read.

On 19 November 2007, the online retailer Amazon.com unveiled a device for reading digital media called Kindle. This week, the giant US bookseller Barnes & Noble presented its rival e-reader, called nook. Next week? Well, there are lots of Old Norse words waiting to be used, and there are lots of companies planning to produce e-readers. And I hope they will.

Lane and Penguin

The last big change we had in reading took place 75 years ago. Using new technology, Sir Allen Lane radically altered the traditional publishing industry. He also changed the economics of the book distribution business as well as the reading habits of millions of people with his revolution. It was the paperback. The nook and the Kindle will do in the coming decade what Sir Allen Lane's Penguin Books did in the UK in the 1930s.

One final word. Again, it's about 1,000 years old, but instead of Old Norse, it's Old English. From bitan, meaning "to bite", we got the world beetle, which four young lads from Liverpool changed to "Beatle" in 1960. Along with changing the spelling, they changed culture and even created the first music videos. Here's one from 1966: "Paperback Writer".

"It's a thousand pages, give or take a few.
I'll be writing more in a week or two.
I can make it longer if you like the style.
I can change it round, and I want to be a paperback writer."