VALERIE SCHULTZ: Marking a change in the times
| Wednesday, Sep 21 2011 03:03 PM
Last Updated Wednesday, Sep 21 2011 03:04 PM
One of the many fascinating things about language is how words evolve over time. Words can immigrate into common usage from other languages, or take on new meanings, or -- alas -- become outdated on their way to obsolescence.
The leaping progress of technology especially seems to appropriate and change at high speed the meanings some words have held for centuries. Once upon a time, "text" indicated something academic. "Google" was an obscure mathematical term. "Friend" was not a verb. The word "bookmark" is similarly losing a meaning that I, as a lifelong bookworm, hold close to my heart.
Although "bookmark" has long been a noun and a verb, we now bookmark virtually. We flag the websites we wish to revisit, much as we used to mark a favorite passage in a book. The difference is that, rather than holding onto a single page of type, our online bookmarks hold the key to large amounts of computerized information that is instantly accessible, a world of knowledge literally at our fingertips, rendering quaint the physical bookmark in a physical book.
But the thought of a bookmark as a relic of the past alarms me. Bookmarks, when I was a kid, were actually a necessity of life. At my school, one was expected to use a bookmark: anyone who dared to fold down the corner of a book to mark a stopping point would face the wrath of a couple of nuns. And God forbid you left a book open facedown, with its pages splayed in a spine-breaking, unladylike fashion. This action bordered on the criminal. We were taught to utilize bookmarks as a sign of respect, especially for library books.
My grandmother, who went green decades before it was popular, advocated recycling, making items like torn, used envelopes into bookmarks, but I preferred the store-bought kind, with artwork or a saying or both, and a yarn tassel tied through it that would hang out of the top of the book.
Bookmarks were hot items at the annual book fair at school. Some were personalized with the initial of your first name, or your zodiac sign, or your favorite sports team. They made good birthday gifts, report-card rewards, and stocking stuffers.
A bookmark even used to be a worthwhile advertising vehicle, especially for places like bookstores. Like matchbook covers, they were ubiquitous. They were common, everyday items, found in every household, and could therefore be exploited for their marketing potential.
In the books that line my bookshelves now, a stray bookmark often prompts a vivid and unexpected memory of a time gone by. I have come across postcards used as bookmarks that jolt me back through the years, when stamps cost much less and the writers of sweet wishes were still alive. A business card or a classroom notice from the last century can evoke a young woman I barely remember being. An old bookmark can be a tangible bit of history that falls from forgotten pages and touches the heart.
I suppose we have always used virtual bookmarks in our minds, just to hold onto memories. My brain bookmarks important events by year: years of birth, of death, of graduation, of marriage, of houses bought and sold, of jobs begun and left.
A mental bookmark sticks out of the crinkled pages of memory, reminding us of something precious. I have my dad's self-deprecating smile bookmarked. And my husband's tanned left hand, without ring and then with, at our wedding. And the joy/sorrow of each daughter's departure for college. And, inexplicably indelible, a fence we built at our first house. We don't always choose our mental bookmarks consciously.
But back in the tangible world, physical bookmarks are increasingly irrelevant. Here is my very real and deep fear in the age of downloadable books and reading devices: electronic books mean electronic bookmarks!
A friend showed me how she had downloaded on her Kindle the book that our women's spirituality group was planning to read next.
"But you can't underline on that!" I pointed out triumphantly, delighted to find a good reason not to use this instrument of the devil.
She calmly showed me the device's handy, easy-to-use highlighting feature. At the touch of her finger, a horizontal yellow stripe appeared over words. In effect, the accursed Kindle could, more easily and instantly, do everything a pencil, a highlighter, and a bookmark could do.
I suddenly saw the writing on the wall; that is to say, the font on the screen. Bookmarks are facing extinction, just a few more of the dinosaur bones I feel I must clutch for posterity. My future grandkids might be curious about the olden days.
