r/lovethissmug • u/Mr__Monster__ • 1d ago

😻 Meme Or Other Online Trope 😂 Dumb textbook pictures

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29.3k Upvotes

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164

u/totaly-Normal-person 1d ago

English is not my native, and i never understand word "text book". aren't all books have text in it?

172

u/KGEOFF89 1d ago

Textbook colloquially means a book in an educational setting

122

u/totaly-Normal-person 1d ago

thanks! so, the text is so good that they actually had to specify it?

63

u/Emerald_official 1d ago

honestly yeah

40

u/Pellepuu2397 Pansexual 1d ago

Wait that's lowk a funny way to say it

20

u/Znshflgzr 1d ago

You haven't seen real text until you open a text book

4

u/Rhetorical_Menace 1d ago

Specifically, it's a book written for a school or university to teach from.

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u/darxide23 1d ago

Textbooks as opposed to picture books that are used in early education for small children who can't read yet. That's where the term comes from.

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u/totaly-Normal-person 1d ago

wait a second, aren't education books usually have more pictures than usual? so "text book" is a book with less text?

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u/Pitcherhelp 1d ago

"Earlier (1730) it meant "book printed with wide spaces between the lines" for notes or translation (such as would have been wanted by students)"

https://www.etymonline.com/word/textbook

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u/Lewa358 1d ago

Per page, yes, but textbooks tend to be denser and longer than comparable books for their age range.

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u/Low-Sell-6943 1d ago

"Text" used to mean "an authoritative piece of writing" as opposed to the modern meaning of "written or printed words in a book". They put these texts in a book with huge margins between each line so people could take notes between the lines and called them textbooks. With a huge push for education in the late 1700s the textbooks became standardized and evolved with the times to focus more on learning material.

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u/Familiar_Fee_8340 1d ago

I think there's a bigger elephant to address

7

u/Eraesr 1d ago

I'm from the Netherlands and we often have a "tekstboek" (text book) and "werkboek" (work book) here. The textbook contains reading material, and most commonly you'll have to fill in exercises related to those texts in the work book.

3

u/GLIBG10B 1d ago

In Afrikaans, we have "handboek" for textbook. Interesting that Dutch and Afrikaans differ in this regard

2

u/RadialRacer 1d ago

And in English we have textbook, workbook, and handbook. Handbook being educational but kind of specifically not in reference to the education system, unlike textbook.

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u/Icy-Initiative-3003 1d ago

Hi totally normal person

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u/totaly-Normal-person 17h ago

hello icy initiative 3003

3

u/Im_Bird-Brained 1d ago

Text books refer to books used as study material

2

u/ampro67 1d ago

like an educational book for school and stuff

2

u/Keeeloy 1d ago

all books have text in it

you have a point. a really good point.