When they were made available to those that needed them, it was hard to get words to refer to them and their users. Somehow, the term vaping came up and it has since caught on as the most common word used to refer to the act of using an e-ciggy. Several reasons may serve to explain its dominance.
Distinction From Smoking.
Most users or shall we call them vapers, were smokers and gave a sigh of relief when they could say bye to the attendant problems of smoking. In a bid to put a mile between themselves and where they came from, the word vaping came up to do away with the need of saying “smoking an electronic cigarette”. Smoking was repugnant to them and they did not want any association with it.
Furthermore, with regulators itching to classify e-cigs as tobacco products despite there being no tobacco in them, it was necessary to avoid doing anything that would be construed by these regulators as a concession by the vaping community that there was no difference between them and smokers. The word vaping serves this purpose very well.
Debate Over A Name.
There seems to be no consensus about what to call these devices. Many people in the vaping community question why, of all names, the makers of these devices chose to call them “e-cigarettes”.
Much as “e-cig” helps to give an idea that the device provides an improved way of smoking, it still brings up the horrors that are associated with smoking and that may perhaps explain why there is so much hostility towards these devices.
The name debate has yielded some alternative names for the devices such as personal vaporizer, vaporizing unit, mod and so many others. However, none of those suggestions has really caught on as they seem not to capture the essence of these devices in the way that e-cig does so all are in use by various sections of the vaping community, with the default name of the devices being e-cig and their users, vapers.
Will There Be An End To This Debate?
Much of the lack of agreement as to what to call the device stems from the stigma that is deeply entrenched when smoking is mentioned. The end to the e-cig name debate may well come from the death of smoking the old way.
A number of experts are predicting that in a few decades smoking will be rendered obsolete by vaping. This is because the rate of conversion to vaping is very high and market figures are already revealing that there are huge drops in the number of cigarettes sold yet the sales of e-cigies are going through the roof year by year.
It is therefore possible to imagine that with time, vaping will be called “smoking” and they will be called “cigarettes” once tobacco are no more and have been totally replaced by e-cigs. Is such an eventuality a daydream or it can, and will happen? Only time can tell!
