Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 September 14

= September 14 =

card reader the electronic device vs. card reader, a person
I just learned that "card reader" may apparently mean a fortune teller who uses cards, a cartomancer. Is this usage common? Is it specific to British English? (it's the British edition of a Canadian show in the video) If I said "A card reader told me my fortune", would this sound funny to a native speaker of English? I'm asking because no dictionary I looked in had this meaning. Asmrulz (talk) 02:52, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
 * It sounds okay to these aged (i.e. pre-electronic version) Canadian ears, and the meaning is obvious enough, though "tarot card reader" is clearer. Clarityfiend (talk) 04:07, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
 * To older British ears (mine) it sounds unusual and ambiguous but not wrong. I don't think I have ever heard a 'tarot-card reader' called a 'card reader' but given suitable context as in your sentence above it would be easily understood and not sound funny, just a little unusual. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.4.183.74 (talk) 07:30, 14 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I hear "card reader", I think of an old IBM machine that reads punched computer cards. More recently, the term suggests a device to read an SD card. In America, the term for a tarot card reader would likely be "fortune teller". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:12, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
 * A cursory google search shows that card reader is a commonplace description of tarot card readers. I suspect there's a subtlety associated with card reader that's entirely absent from fortune teller. --Tagishsimon (talk) 14:47, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
 * A card-reader would be performing cartomancy. That is, all card-readers are fortune tellers, but not all fortune tellers are card readers. Adam Bishop (talk) 19:57, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Not all card readers use Tarot card,ordinary playing cards and other packs of game cards may be used Hotclaws (talk) 08:38, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
 * You don't need a crystal ball to know that. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:01, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I've gotta find myself a new psychic. My last one had to close their business down through unforeseen circumstances.  --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  00:16, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
 * You should have given him a good punch. Always try to strike a happy medium.... I hesitate to put my name to this but here goes:- Alansplodge (talk) 02:01, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
 * There used to be this "ghost hunter" named Hans Holzer who conducted seances and such stuff as that. He once said that it was difficult to find gifted persons for these seances, or as he put it, "Good mediums are rare." Who says parapsychologists have no sense of humor? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:48, 16 September 2012 (UTC)


 * To these Canadian ears, "card reader" works equally well for someone performing cartomancy/tarot reading as for the electronic device and the difference would be easily understood from context. I would find "tarot card reader" somewhat redundant as tarot is primarily used for card reading; it would only sound natural if you were differentiating such a person with another who uses a regular deck or some other non-tarot deck. Matt Deres (talk) 03:44, 15 September 2012 (UTC)