Word of the Day: Tuesday 4 March  2003

Tabloid

Kel Richards writes

The word tabloid was registered on 14th March 1884, as a trademark by Messrs Burroughs Welcome and Co., as applied to medical and pharmaceutical preparations prepared by them. Tabloid was constructed from the word “tablet” (which came into English from French in the 14th century and, originally, meant anything relatively rather small and flat) and the suffix “—oid” (meaning “having the form of” or “in the shape of”). The word was intended to convey the notion of something small and concentrated. In the First World War there was a small Sopwith biplane nicknamed “the tabloid” – because “it contained so many good qualities in such a small compass”. In much the same way a small cruising yacht was called a “tabloid cruiser”. Then in 1918 Alfred Harmsworth (the inventor of the “penny press” – the cheap daily newspaper) seems to have applied the word tabloid to his popular newspapers – which presented news and features in a concentrated, easily assimilated, form (often with pages smaller than a regular, or “broadsheet” newspaper). Such papers quickly came to rely heavily on sensationalism, and so the word tabloid acquired the new meaning of “sensational”. I once wrote for TV series called Murder Call and I was told the show needed “tabloid plots” – meaning plots that were sensational and unusual (as well as being mysterious and melodramatic).The expression “the tabloids” now largely refers to those newspapers that thrive on sensational celebrity gossip. They are known in the US as “supermarket tabloids” and in Britain as “the red tops