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Topic: Tabloid

Today we mark the occasion—in 1833—when The New York Sun first hit the streets. Not coincidentally, this also marks the birth of the penny press; publisher Benjamin Day dropped a nickel from the going rate for a newspaper when he had his newsboys sell his paper for one cent. Other publishers followed; the rising literacy rate and the inexpensive and widespread availability of newspapers packed with human interest stories helped the penny press catch on.

What also caught on—and which has outlasted the term penny press—was the term tabloid. Today we know the tabloid as a newspaper about half the size of an ordinary newspaper that contains news in condensed form and which features much photographic matter.

So how did tabloid come by that name? Believe it or not, that media term was born in a trademarked term for small pills. Back in the late 1800s, pharmaceutical entrepreneur Henry Wellcome blended tablet and ovoid (or perhaps -oid) into tabloid to help market his company's compressed pills. Soon, the term was being applied to things other than pills that were smaller or more compressed than the usual form. Wellcome's company tried suing in order to halt trademark infringement; Burroughs, Wellcome won the lawsuit but lost the battle. In true tabloid fashion, Wellcome later found himself fodder for the tabloids when he sued his wife for divorce following her affair with W. Somerset Maugham.

Questions or comments? Write us at wftw@aol.com Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and Web sites including Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition.

they used to sell all kinds of lethal stuff over the counter.

at a local bottle museum, they have different kinds of glass bottles, over a hundred years old, filled with compressed pills of laudanum, belladonna, digitalis, and other horrors.

they are candy coated too, tempting for little kids!