Terminology: "analogs" vs. "cigarettes"

[madqatter]

it's very important that people understand the difference.

I agree. I think it is crucial, if we want to avoid more vaping bans-- as I certainly do, that we shout the differences from the rooftops. This is not tobacco, there is no fire, no smoke, no carbon monoxide and tar, no ash, no butts. We need the general public to know what we really are doing (vaping) and not to confuse it with what we aren't doing (smoking).

I call them "cigarettes" and "personal vaporizers" to make the difference clear.

I use the terms "personal vaporizer" and "PV," too. When I'm talking with people who don't know what vaping is, I don't use terms such as "electronic cigarettes" or "e-cigs" without some qualification such as "Personal vaporizers are sometimes called e-cigarettes, but they're not really cigarettes at all. We don't smoke PVs; they're a smoking alternative. I used PVs to quit smoking."

If the general public becomes convinced that this is just another way to smoke tobacco, then we've already lost the battle against bans.

 

[Chas F.]

Words have meaning and because of that I prefer to call my PV a personal vaporizer. I don't refer to vaping as 'smoking' my e-cig. It's vaping plain and simple. It's not smoking at all and don't want it associated with it at all. I didn't know what the term analog meant and wouldn't have associated it with smoking if not for forums like this.

 

[ShariR]

I smoked for 45 years. I know what I was smoking. They were and still are called cigarettes. I don't understand this analog business. They were cigarettes, people.

 

[Vo0Do0]

What? You don't like being a ...ktard hipster? Wind-suits use to be the 'in' thing too..

Only things I will refer to analogs are: non-digital processing synthesizers and non-digital meters/tuners.

Exactly! Maybe mix in a little political correct sissy nonsense as well. They're just trying to be "cool" and making words try and sound so...nice.

They're ....... cigarettes. Period.

And they will always be associated with cigs. They both deliver your nicotine fix orally, in a stick form and either smoke comes out or something that looks like smoke.

There are some weird ... people up in here.

 

[GranFumador]

For those (3? 4?) of us interested in etymology (Please look it up; it's at least as interesting as coils and juice.) it may be fun to trace the word cigar, whence the diminutive cigarette. Here's a quick snippet from a reliable source, the Online Etymology Dictionary. Note that this is not the Urban Dictionary, but an academic source drawing on scholarship rather than wild inventions and HAGs.

1730, from Spanish cigarro (source also of French cigare), probably from Maya sicar "to smoke rolled tobacco leaves," from si'c "tobacco;" or from or influenced by Spanish cigarra "grasshopper, cicada" (on resemblance of shape), from Vulgar Latin *cicala (source also of French cigale, Italian cigala).

OK, with that as background, when I vape, I am doing nothing analogous to smoking rolled tobacco leaves, nor does my vaporizer look anything like una cigarra (¡ni mucho menos!) or grasshopper or any other known bug. I'm creating and enjoying vapor with nicotine in it.
Others may do similar things without the nicotine. Their call.

The turntable I use to play original Miles Davis and Bill Evans vinyl analog records does not, on a good day, produce smoke.

I'm not bothered if others want to twist the language. Languages evolve, and slang and jargon can be fun. But I'm a curmudgeon who likes precision in naming things. A cigarette burns chopped up leaves and lots of other stuff. My PG and VG and nicotine and flavor and distilled water vapor does not.

I don't suggest anyone else do this, unless they feel like it. When I'm asked what my mini protank and spinner are, I answer that they are a vaporizer. When asked if I was using an e-cig, I said "No." I said that cigarettes are mostly tobacco, and that my device didn't contain tobacco, so it isn't any kind of cigarette.

These are merely personal preferences, not worth fighting about. Call them whatever makes you smile.

 

[godek]

It really depends on who I'm talking to.

In forums or on vapemeets I use analogues (Pyros in Germany) but when talking to anyone else, I use cigarette as they would have no Idea what I talk about otherwise.

br
godek

 

[Loop]

Exactly! Maybe mix in a little political correct sissy nonsense as well. They're just trying to be "cool" and making words try and sound so...nice.

They're ....... cigarettes. Period.

And they will always be associated with cigs. They both deliver your nicotine fix orally, in a stick form and either smoke comes out or something that looks like smoke.

There are some weird ... people up in here.

I personally still refer to "Analogs" as cigs. I can understand though why they were referred to as analogs though, in the beginning the Chinese manufacturers kept saying that these new "electronic cigarettes" were digital and contained some kind of special chips and what not. I think some people saw it like the comparison between and analog cell phone and the digital cell phones.

Personally when discussing "electronic cigarettes" I call them PV's or APV to try to remove the cigarette name from them. I think the more we refer to them as cigs the more the anti's see them as bad. I mean look at the current political situation when dealing with PV's. The cig a likes are currently embroiled in a war with politics. I actually am not so sure they even know about the mods (The Anti's). I also think they know jack about liquids either. They get these random low quality china throw away pv's and then expect high quality and blanket the whole industry with the simple 10 cart test the FDA did?

So just for the sake of me wanting to continue to vape, I call Vapor exactly that and not smoke. I also will not use the e-cig name for the devices.

 

[Giraut]

Every community devoted to something or other invents a truckload of obscure terms and acronyms to differentiate the "in" crowd from ordinary mortals. That's just how human beings function.

For example, I hang around a lot on bicycle forums, and they use their own little dictionary of incomprehensible words that non cyclists just won't understand: for them, a "mech" is a derailleur. Go figure...

Calling cigarettes "analogs" make no sense at all, but if you use the word, you become hip. However, I will go with "personal vaporizer", which is much much better term than "electronic cigarette", just because it doesn't have "cigarette" in the name.

And speaking of mechs, mechanical mods are not mechanical, so that makes no sense either. I'd call them low-tech or bare-bone myself, but certainly not mechanical. But since that's what people use, that's what's gonna stick, and that's fine as long as everybody undertands

 

[XJ-linux]

I call mine a flavor atomizer. I don't use nicotine juice, so it's not a nicotine delivery system. Mine is an iTaste VTR, so it's not really even cigarette-like in form either.

 

[Buggainok]

Every community devoted to something or other invents a truckload of obscure terms and acronyms to differentiate the "in" crowd from ordinary mortals. That's just how human beings function.

For example, I hang around a lot on bicycle forums, and they use their own little dictionary of incomprehensible words that non cyclists just won't understand: for them, a "mech" is a derailleur. Go figure...

Calling cigarettes "analogs" make no sense at all, but if you use the word, you become hip. However, I will go with "personal vaporizer", which is much much better term than "electronic cigarette", just because it doesn't have "cigarette" in the name.

And speaking of mechs, mechanical mods are not mechanical, so that makes no sense either. I'd call them low-tech or bare-bone myself, but certainly not mechanical. But since that's what people use, that's what's gonna stick, and that's fine as long as everybody undertands

That makes a lot of sense to say "personal vaporizer." I can see how the "general public" which tends to be uneducated sometimes, and hears stuff in 30 second sound bites, would assume that if you were using an "e-cigarette" and exhaling "smoke", that you were still "smoking tobacco" and polluting their air.

The Governor of my state, Oklahoma, recently issued a ban on use of "e-cigarettes" on state owned property. They interviewed people for their opinions. When told e-cigarettes were not the same as smoking regular cigarettes, people still wanted them banned, because "it looks like people are smoking."

 

[JavaDan]

Personally, I like the British word - fags. Unfortunately, in the US that isn't a good word to be throwing around and if you think Americans won't understand the term analogs, try that one and see what happens.

 

[ImpliedConsent]

Just throwing in my two cents (hi, I'm new to ECF by the way; been lurking for ages):

I'm not keen on the "analog" lingo, but primarily because of my electronics/computing/radio background. My mechanical mods are analog, my VV/VW's (which universally use PWM) are digital. The smokes I finally quit with the aid of these wonderful vaporizers are "combustibles" if you're feeling spicy - or just plain old "smokes"


As an aside, I'm on the Reo train now, and I wish I'd skipped all the other devices and jumped here straight off!

 

[MrSelf Destruct]

I use the word cigarette because that is what they are. I'm not one for redefining words. I also don't drink the same kind of kool-aid a lot of people on this forum drink.

 

[Giraut]