From: Robbi Eklow

I have a lot of your books, as I think you are the BEST Mac author there is. I just bought Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Panther Edition to replace my old Missing Manual for just plain OS X, and I'm loving it.

Except, I cannot stand it when you call Mac users "Mac fans." This is such a stupid term. I don't remember running across it before in your writing. It irritates me to no end. It's distracting. It bothers me because I adore your writing so, and here is this big blot on the face of it.

It annoys me because, even though I have had a Mac since 1992, I am not a "Mac fan," and I refuse to refer to myself as one. To me, a "fan" is someone who admires someone from afar. I am a fan of Sarah McLachlan. I am a fan of James Taylor. I own a Mac; I use a Mac. James Taylor does not come to my house or do my chores.

I am 46 years old, and I don't like to be called a Mac fan any more than I like being called a Dummy.

Several months ago I went to CompUSA, and some kid working there said to me, "Are you a Mac fan?" The question seemed so stupid and annoying, I had to pause a minute in order not to be rude. I said, "I am not a fan, I am a longtime user."

What if you referred to us as "longtime Mac users," "Mac aficionados," "knowledgeable Mac users," "veteran Mac users" . . . ? Get my drift?

I did notice you put a false first page on your Dummies books. I must not have been the only person to write and tell you that I think the title Macs for Dummies is stupid because Mac people, by definition, are not dummies.

BTW, a light turned on the other night and I decided that PCs really aren't computers. They are machines that are trying to be what computers should be, but haven't reached the level of sophistication that should define a computer.

This was after having bought a new PowerBook (my fifth Mac), an iSight, an iPod, and a lot of accessories in one month, while totally ignoring the Dell I bought a year ago in order to run a specific application that would not run under Virtual PC.

My husband swears at his Dell on a daily basis. I don't swear at mine; it's just a machine. However, I have hugged my PowerBook several times this week.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and thanks even more for writing.

Robbi

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Hi Robbi,

Very, very interesting! Nobody's ever commented on this term before.

I use "Mac fans" with a great deal of thought, for two reasons:

• I can't abide the term "users" for people who use computers. As you know, there's only one other industry that calls its customers "users," and I hate to lump in my readers with drug addicts!

• Most people who use Macs do so because they're passionate. They've made a choice, unlike Windows PC users who are most often stuck with the PC at work, having been given no choice. The term "Mac fans," in my book, is a subtle acknowledgment that we actually like our computers--we don't just use them.

Nonetheless, I'll fish around for alternatives. "Aficionados" is OK, except that it implies a degree of expertise that novices may not have. Let me know if you come up with any alternatives!

David

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