novel = any book (again)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

>From a column complaining about kids these days and their limited vocabulary...

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/18/AR2006081800976.html
Washington Post, August 20, 2006; Page B03
"Writing Off Reading," by Michael Skube

College students nowadays call any book, fact or fiction, a novel. I
have no idea why this is, but I first became acquainted with the
peculiarity when a senior at one of the country's better state
universities wrote a paper in which she referred to "The Prince" as
"Machiavelli's novel."
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--Ben Zimmer

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org