Why are pages used as a measure of length and not word count?

Why are pages used as a measure of length and not word count?

Because then publishers couldn't use huge letters and massive letters to inflate the size of the book and make little Timmy/disappointingly not little Stacy think that they're reading *really intelligent doorstoppers*.

"Alright class. Tonight's homework is to read to word 2,643. Oh and don't forget, be ready to review words 1,158-2,227 next Tuesday."

easier to reference
>but you could just use lines!
how would you know where the line is located?

How the fuck do you know where pages are located?

Lines have the exact same problem pages do, anyway. That is, they represent nothing.

it's casual impression. It sounds more impressive to say "I have read this 300-pages books" instead of "I have read this 200k words".

300 pages are simply easier to imagine and more practical to the mind.

But publishers don't make that mistake, they ask for word count, not page count from writers. So do worry.

Obviously books would have page count for orientation, but when "Length" is given for a work, it should be in word count.

pages are a definite unit of measurement and it's extremely easy to estimate them
a given page could have any amount of lines on it but a page will always be a page
similarly if the book has images or anything outside of just the body of text (e.g. footnotes) you would naturally need pages to reference them
pages are easier to visualise

Why shouldn't it be glyph count?

Because glyphs aren't read individually, words are.

Because words already don't vary with font size and typeface, so it's an unneeded amount of precision

Also

Address

>How the fuck do you know where pages are located?
This is this. This is Veeky Forums. This right here.

I don't know about you, faggot, but I don't have trouble finding lines in stage plays.

Is there any reference site that lists word counts

Pages literally have numbers written on them, as do lines in stage plays.

That's my fucking point.

It's my point too but we were both blind to each other. We must work hand in hand from now on.

this was far funnier than it should have been to me

Page number isn't given to procure some stupid self-satisfaction but to give the buyer an idea of the book size. Word count doesn't evoke anything in mind.

>122p.
>small book
>478p.
>big book

>Word count doesn't evoke anything in mind.
Because you're not used to it, obviously.
"fl.oz" means nothing to me but if I was American I could have visualized an amount of liquid by the number

You don't do anything to a word yet you turn the pages, they act as some kind of graduation. How many people force themselves to finish the current page before they close the book?

As another guy said, it's meaningless to say “Oh, I'm at word #2,409” or “let's read together words #400 to #800”. The page a more reasonable, relevant unit, and so it is associated in mind. Word count will never have the same effect. The only thing a word count evokes to me is an essay length.

>Word count doesn't evoke anything in mind.

Actually, word count gives you a better representation of how long a book is than pages. My copy of Jack Vance's Dying Earth has more pages than my copy of A Fire Upon The Deep, despite being a shorter book. I can tell at a glance that it's a shorter book because it has a lower word count.

The only reason you aren't able to make comparisons like this in your head is because you aren't used to doing it.

They should avoid the words and pages and just count morphemes instead.

who the fuck uses pages? everyone who's not a fucking mong assigns word counts, but like somebody says morphemes would be even better but they are harder to count so word count it is.

>words don't vary

They don't vary with font size, no.
The count is the same.

I go by word count, OP.

They should count phonemes actually IMO

Actually it makes the most sense to count characters

Because most books are physical and are printed the same way every time?

I mean, it seems like the publishing industry has formulas for words-per-page based on fiction or non-fiction books, so you can get a general idea of the word count based on page length if you know the formula.

granted the formulas might not be common knowledge, but unless your font is a really unusual font size, it shouldn't change that much from the original? and aside from the publishers and authors themselves, who questions the word count of books on a daily basis?

To be fair a few of my philosophy books go up to page 150-200 but the word count is upwards of 100,000 words. They fit hundreds of words on one page somehow perfectly fitting the words while not hindering legibility. So when I see a book has 150 pages I think "Oh it'll be a short read I'll start that first" then when I'm 80 pages in I've already read a long book. I think a nice compromise would be to list both word count and page number.
>Word count and page number instead of either/or.