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The Problem of Comparing E-cigarettes with Conventional Cigarettes

With every technological invention comes new vocabulary. E-cigarette and electronic cigar are examples of words borne on the winds of science; the words have proper place in the English vocabulary. But now we have two main kinds of cigarettes—e-cigarette and what?

We can’t refer to e-cigarettes and the cigarettes invented before them with the same name because they are two different things. I’m offering a number of solutions to this problem, starting with the most suitable term.

How to Talk about Conventional Cigarettes

A conventional cigarette is a cigarette made of finely cut tobacco leaves and wrapped into paper. Conventional smoking is the activity of smoking conventional cigarettes. Use the following expressions to refer to conventional cigarettes when you have to compare them with e-cigarettes:

• conventional cigarette / conventional smoking

• regular cigarette / regular smoking

• traditional cigarette / traditional smoking

• ordinary cigarette / ordinary smoking

How Did I Come Up with These Expressions

The old-fashioned way: by looking into the Roget’s Thesaurus, Merriam Webster’s Dictionary and Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English.