| 释义 |
ˌpenny-a-liner
[f. as penny-a-line a. + -er1.]
A writer for a newspaper or journal who is paid at a penny a line, or at a low rate (usually implying one who manufactures ‘paragraphs’, or writes in an inflated style so as to cover as much space as possible); a poor or inferior writer for hire; a hack-writer for the press. (contemptuous.)
1834H. Ainsworth Rookwood iii. v, Penny-a-liners and fashionable novelists; so many damned dramatists, and damning critics. 1840Thackeray Paris Sk.-bk. Wks. 1900 V. 44 This country is surely the paradise of painters and penny-a-liners. 1871[see century 3 b]. 1889E. Sampson Tales of Fancy 22 These effusions were usually written by ‘Old Willey’, printer, penny-a-liner, and pugilistic scribe. 1930E. Weekley Saxo Grammaticus 12 That type of journalist who used to be rudely called a penny-a-liner. 1947W. S. Maugham Creatures of Circumstance 9 He wouldn't have liked it if some damned penny-a-liner had made fun of Evie's effort in one of the papers.
Hence (nonce-wd.) ˌpenny-a-ˈlinerism, an expression in the style of a penny-a-liner.
1870Jacox Rec. of Recluse II. iii. 52 A story..originally due to the fancy of a penny-a-liner. 1872Punch 5 Oct. 143/2 The note of preparation, to use a penny-a-linerism, is now sounding for the winter theatrical campaign. |