Almach

Almach (pronounced elle-mak)

(1) In astronomy, a second-magnitude quadruple star, telescopically visible as an apparent double star composed of an orange bright giant and a fifth-magnitude blue-white triple star, marking the left foot of the chained woman in the northern constellation of Andromeda.

(2) In astronomy, Gamma Andromedae, specifically the brightest star of the Almach star system.

Late 1500s (in English): From the Arabic العناق الأرض (al-ʿanāq al-arḍ) (desert lynx or caracal).  The construct of the original Arabic was al- (the (the Arabic definite article)) + ʿanāq (a small wild animal, often glossed as lynx, caracal, or desert fox) + al-arḍ (“the earth” or “the ground”).  The process by which “al-ʿanāq al-ard” became “Almach” was a familiar one, the transmission into medieval Latin astronomical texts often was accomplished via translations of works by writers from Antiquity such as the Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer & astrologer Ptolemy (Claudius Ptolemy, circa 100–170), filtered sometimes through the writings of Arabic scholars who contributed much to pre-modern science.  These processes appears to have been lineal (though not necessarily in a single path because variations in spelling and use continued with alternatives running in parallel) and the evolution essential was al-ʿanāq → al-anach → almach.  The “-mach” element was a not untypical corruption of the guttural consonants (ʿayn and qāf) so familiar in Arabic that didn’t map neatly into pronunciation in Latin or later European languages.  While not a “meaningful” word in European languages Almach endures as fossilized misreading of an Arabic descriptive name, preserved (as modified) through the long transmission chain of classical astronomy, a not unique linguistic phenomenon because other names of places in the Cosmos (such as Rigel and Betelgeuse) went through similar Arabic to Latin distortions and these types, although outwardly different, in structural linguistics, the patterns are said to be consistent.

Caracel HD wallpaper from Alphacoders.

The related variant (referring to the same star) is Alamak, a closer phonetic attempt at the Arabic original.  Alamak may be thought a less-corrupted sibling of Almach with both traced back to the same Arabic source, the difference being in the in transliteration of ʿanāq, approximated as anak or amak.  So “Alamak” represents a more faithful attempt to emulate the phonetic practice in Arabic with the consonants (especially the final qāf) rendered in something close to the original but whether this happened as a deliberate attempt at “authenticity”, through the offices of an Arabic-speaking scholar or a native speaker of the tongue isn’t known.  That of course poses the question of why, when Arabic astronomical, scientific or mathematical texts were translated into Latin in medieval Spain or elsewhere, there was no standardized system for either preserving multi-word (or element) names or representing guttural consonants.  Etymologists caution modern conventions and conditions cannot be mapped onto earlier eras with transliterations and translations a good example.  In Europe, scholars, separated often by hundreds of miles, sometimes were working with the same ancient or foreign texts and it wasn’t unknown for them for years or even decades to be unaware of the work of others, the modern concepts of “publishing” and “distribution” then centuries away.  That’s also why so many errors of translation for so long endured into the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and Modernity, a mistake which gained critical mass (especially if widely printed) being accepted as orthodoxy.  Sometimes the errors were mistakes or misunderstandings but there’s long been evidence medieval scribes weren’t above “making stuff up” to “fill in the gaps” so what the early versions of consumer-level generative AI (artificial intelligence) products (ie, the ones we’re living with in the mid-2020s) sometimes do is not novel, as the recent "experiment" publishing "data" about the "condition" bixonimania demonstrated. 

Almach's place in Andromeda from the BBC's Sky at Night.  The lines drawn on the chart illustrate the romantic origin of the link with the caracal (lynx or desert fox).

Both “Almach” & “Alamak” (or “Almak” entered English through the highly productive medieval–early modern pipeline of Arabic to Latin to become part of the vernacular of astronomy but use stabilized at different times.  Almach came first to English, appearing late in the sixteenth century in “star catalogues” (some of which carefully were illustrated with commendable accurately) and by the early 1600s, it had been accepted as the standard form in English astronomical works, remaining the dominant use for Gamma Andromedae well into the modern period.  The variants “Alamak” & “Almak” came later, there being no evidence of use prior to the mid-eighteenth century and the more phonetically informed transliteration probably was influenced by an improved European knowledge of Arabic phonology, the shift from “-ch” to “-k” representing a closer rendering of the Arabic ق. (qāf).  While that “authenticity” made it a more “difficult” word for those in the West, there were scholars wo took pride in wherever possible respecting original forms and although mistakes may have come from “source documents”, it was accepted practice to “correct” things verified as wrong.  “Almak” however was not an “error”; it was a variant spelling of “Alamak” simplified by dropping the medial vowel.  Today, “Almach” remains the orthodoxy in astronomy, while “Almak” survives as a recognized but less common variant.  In the layered lexicon of astronomy, the synonym of Almach is Andromedae and the holonym (in philosophy & semantics, philosophy a term that denotes the whole of which another term's referent is a part) is Andromeda.  Almach is a proper noun.

Despite the similarity, there is no connection between the use of “Alamak” in astrometry and the Malay word alamak (an interjection meaning something like “Oh dear” (in the sense of an expression of shock or dismay)?  While the former ultimately was the result of transliteration drift (an attempt to correct an imperfect rendering of a Latinized Arabic), the Malay word comes from a wholly separate linguistic stream.  The Malay interjection alamak! deconstructs as al- (the Arabic definite article (the) which was absorbed into Malay through Islamic and literary influences + amak (colloquial Malay for “mother”).  So alamak! (Literally “oh, mother!”) is understood as an exclamatory construction expressing surprise, alarm, or dismay and in that it may be thought functionally similar to English expressions such as “oh dear!” or “oh my!” or “oh goodness!”, such fragments doubtless parts of just about every language, serving as “polite” or “socially acceptable” ways of expressing emotions other “oh xxx!” forms do in earthier, more vulgar ways (in English there are more than a dozen of these).  The Malay use is thought probably to have originated as a contracted form of Al(lah) (God) +‎ mak (mother) with the Arabic al- (“the”) an “official” substitute element to avoid using the name of God for a purpose which might in some circumstances have been judged “a profanity or blasphemy”.  There may have been some Portuguese influence (from the common expression Kristang alamah (Mother of God) or even the Christian expression “Mary, mother of God” but modern Malaysian scholars have suggested the Malay term may be contracted from the Arabic اللَّهُ مَعَكَ (al-lahu maʕaka), a traditional phrase meaning “May God be with you”.  Whatever the origin, it survived into the modern era as an exclamation or expression of alarm about a problem, error or crisis.

Four star system (cosmology).

Gamma Andromedae is a multiple star system in the northern constellation of Andromeda and the third-brightest in the constellation, after Alpheratz and Mirach; it is some 390 light-years distant from Earth.  Believed by the astronomers of Antiquity to be a single star, using the more advanced telescopes which had become available, German physicist Johann Tobias Mayer (1752–1830) in 1778 determined the object to be a “double star system”, the brighter member, Andromedae the “primary” component and thus designated Andromedae A (officially “Almach”), used as the traditional name of the whole system seen by the naked eye as a single object.  The fainter secondary was called Andromedae B and it was only later (when optics improved further) that Andromedae was observed to be “triple system” and what appears to the naked eye as a “single star” is thus a “four star system”.  That compelled the the renaming of Andromedae B to Andromedae Ba & Andromedae Bb.

Four star system (Hollywood).

The Mean Girls (2004) crew (Regina George (Rachel McAdams, b 1978)), Gretchen Wieners (Lacey Chabert, b 1982)), Karen Smith (Amanda Seyfried, b 1985)) and Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan, b 1986)), pictured at the 2005 MTV Movie Awards ceremony.  Barbara “Barbra” Streisand (b 1942) starred in the movie Funny Girl (1968) and, after completing the sequel (Funny Lady (1975)), joked that in a few decades she expected to hear from Columbia Pictures “…offering her the title role in Funny Old Hag.”  Whether there will be a Mean Ladies isn’t known but one day, definitely there should be a Mean Old Hags.

Four star system (military).

Portrait of General George S. Patton (1945), oil on canvas by Boleslaw Jan Czedekowski (1885-1969), National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC.  Four star US Army General George Patton (1885-1945) was steeped in military history and thought in millennialist terms.  During World War II (1939-1945) thought of the Germans as “the Prussians” and the Soviets as the “the Mongols”.  After the war ended, so concerned was the US State Department about General Patton’s openly expressed hostility towards the Soviet Union they feared he might do something which would trigger conflict; even if brief and localized, that would have been unwelcome so the diplomats asked the Army to have their psychiatrists “keep a discrete eye on him”.  Patton was seriously injured in a traffic accident early in December 1945, dying some two weeks later.

The use of “star” to describe the hierarchy of senior military ranks is now well-established and is useful for those not well-acquainted with the nomenclature.  For example a three star (lieutenant) general out-ranks a two star (major) general by a grade despite a major out-ranking a lieutenant by two notches.  The reasons for the apparent anomaly are historic but is an indication why for non-experts it easier to “think stars” than titles.  Surprisingly, in the United States military, the system was finalized only this century and prior to 1944, the matter of stars and titles for generals had been a little confused, the whole order of precedence in the army since the Declaration of Independence only properly codified with some retrospective creations in 1976 and 2024.  Historically, the most senior rank in the US Army had been lieutenant general and it was as one George Washington (1732–1799; first POTUS, 1789-1797) retired from the military.  The first major change came in the post Civil War (1861-1865) era when the rank of “General of the Army” was gazetted and while nominally a four star appointment, structurally, it was the equivalent of what would in 1944 be formalized as five star rank.  However, in 1866, the significance of the title “General of the Army” was it reflected the appointee being the general with authority over the whole army which meant there could be only ever be one in active service.  In other words, that meant the four star general was commander-in-chief of the army and the paperwork had years earlier been prepared for Washington to be raised thus but this was never done because of concern among lawyers it might set a precedent and be seen to impinge upon a president’s authority as commander in chief.  Indeed, although later the US military would use titles such as “Commander in Chief, US Pacific Command”, Donald Rumsfeld (1932–2021: US defense secretary 1975-1977 & 2001-2006) in 2002 ended the practice (and use of the acronym CINC) by re-asserting there was in the US: “only one commander in chief in America - the president”, spelled out in Article II, Section 2 of the US Constitution: “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States."  The matter of civilian authority over the military was one of the founding principles of the republic.

The next change came when General John "Black Jack" Pershing (1860–1948) who had commanded the US expeditionary forces in World War I (1914-1918) was appointed to the then unique rank of General of the Armies of the United States.  At the time, the war was known as the "World War" (a suggestion by Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924; POTUS 1913-1921)), the vast and bloody conflict already regarded as “the war to end all wars” and the feeling was the conflict had in scale and awfulness been unique so some special recognition was deserved.  Pershing however remained a four star general and confusingly, when the spate of five star appointments was made between 1944-1950, the old wording “General of the Army” was revived with the pecking order based on the gazetted date of appointment to the rank which no longer implied an individual having authority over the entire army.  There have since been no five star creations (although many other armies have continued to appoint field marshals which is the equivalent).  In the US, some historians and many in the military fretted over the untidiness of it all and in 1976, George Washington formerly was gazetted “General of the Armies of the United States with rank and precedence over all other grades of the Army, past or present”, meaning he will for all time be the US Army’s senior officer.

1995 Mercedes-Benz E 320 Cabriolet (A124) in Polar White over Black Leather with 16 inch Alamak wheels.  The A124 (1992-1997) was a variant of the W124 (1985-1995) and was the factory's first four-seat cabriolet since the W111 (1961-1971).    

The Alamak wheel design by Mercedes-Benz is also sometime referred as the “8-hole” which is accurate, if brutish.  The name comes from the alternative spelling of the common name for Gamma Andromedae and is one of a number of examples of the factory turning to the lexicon of cosmology to dub wheel designs, others in the celestial theme including Adharaz (a star in Canis Major), Alcor (a star in Ursa Major), Mizar (a star in Ursa Major) and Toliman (Alpha Centauri).  The Alamaks were most often fitted to the W126 (1976-1991), W201 (1982-1993), W124 (1985-1997), R129 (1989-2001) and W140 (1991-1999) ranges.  Among students of such things the Alamaks were thought among the factory’s most accomplished designs (some of what followed, notably on the W210 (1994-2003) were inexplicably ugly) but dissenting from the admirers were the AMG fanboys who, whenever possible, sought to replace the Alamaks fitted to the early build 500 E models (1991-1995) with some flavour of AMG’s Monoblock wheels, a design which attracted a cult-like following.   Late in the run of the R129, a less aesthetically pleasing variant of the Alamak’s theme appeared as the Albireo, a "six-hole" design; they were fitted as standard equipment on Silver Arrow edition R129s.  Albireo is a double star system in the Constellation Cygnus.

Press

Press (pronounced pres)

(1) To act upon with steadily applied weight or force.

(2) To move by weight or force in a certain direction or into a certain position.

(3) To compress or squeeze, as to alter in shape or size.

(4) To hold closely, as in an embrace; clasp.

(5) To flatten or make smooth, especially by ironing.

(6) To extract juice, sugar, etc from by pressure.

(7) To manufacture (phonograph records, videodiscs, or the like), especially by stamping from a mold or matrix.

(8) To exert weight, force, or pressure.

(9) In weightlifting, to raise or lift, especially a specified amount of weight, in a press.

(10) To iron clothing, curtains, etc.

(11) To bear heavily, as upon the mind.

(12) To compel in another, haste, a change of opinion etc.

(13) Printed publications, especially newspapers and periodicals.  Collectively, all the media and agencies that print, broadcast, or gather and transmit news, including newspapers, newsmagazines, radio and television news bureaus, and wire services.

(14) The editorial employees, taken collectively, of these media and agencies.

(15) To force into military service.

1175-1225: From the Middle English press & presse (throng, trouble, machine for pressing) from the Old French, from presser (to press) from the Latin pressāre, frequentative of premere (past participle pressus).  In Medieval Latin it became pressa (noun use of the feminine of pressus).  The noun press (a crowd, throng, company; crowding and jostling of a throng; a massing together) emerged in the late twelfth century and was from the eleventh century Old French presse (a throng, a crush, a crowd; wine or cheese press), from the Latin pressare.  Although in the Late Old English press existed in the sense of "clothes press", etymologists believe the Middle English word is probably from French.  The general sense of an "instrument or machine by which anything is subjected to pressure" dates from the late fourteenth century and was first used to describe a "device for pressing cloth" before being extended to "devices which squeeze juice from grapes, oil from olives, cider from apples etc".  The sense of "urgency; urgent demands of affairs" emerged in the 1640s.  It subsequently proved adaptable as a technical term in sports, adopted by weightlifting in 1908 while the so-called (full-court press) defense in basketball was first recorded in 1959.  Press is a noun & verb, pressingness is a noun, pressing is a noun, verb & adjective, pressed is a verb & adjective and pressingly is an adverb; the noun plural is presses.  The now archaic verb prest was a simple past and past participle of press.

Fleet Street's last "hot-metal" press, now a permanent exhibit at National Science Museum's Science and Innovation Park, Wroughton, England.

Installed originally in the 1930s to print the Daily Mail and Evening Standard, the apparatus is some 9 metres (29½ feet) high and 9½ metres (31 feet) long, weighing 140 tonnes (154 short tons).  Given the bulk, the museum's management have good reason to make this exhibit permanent.  Although considerably more intricate than the printing presses of 500 years earlier, the operators of those would still have recognized and understood the processes and mechanisms.

The specific sense "machine for printing" was from the 1530s, extended by the 1570s to publishing houses and to publishing generally (in phrases like freedom of the press) from circa 1680 although meaning gradually shifted in early 1800s to "periodical publishing; journalism".  Newspapers collectively came to be spoken of as "the press" simply because they were printed on printing presses and the use to mean "journalists collectively" is attested from 1921 but this has faded from use with the decline in print and the preferred reference has long been “the news media”, Donald Trump (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) helpfully distinguishing between the news media (those agreeing with him) and the fake new media (those not).  The first gathering called a press conference is attested from 1931, though the thing itself had been around for centuries (and in some sense formalized during World War I (1914-1918)) although a politician appears first to have appointed a “press secretary” as late as 1940; prior to that there was some reluctance among politicians to admit they had people on the payroll to "manage the press" but the role long pre-dates 1940.  The term “press release” (an official statement offered to a newspaper and authorized for publication) is from 1918 although the practice was of long-standing.  The sense "force into military (especially naval) service" emerged (most famously in the “press-gang” (a detachment under command of an officer empowered to press men into public service)) in the 1570s, an alteration (by association with the verb press) of the mid-fourteenth century prest (engage by loan, pay in advance (especially in reference to money paid to a soldier or sailor on enlisting), from the Latin praestare (to stand out, stand before; fulfill, perform, provide), the construct being prae- (before) + stare (to stand), from the primitive Indo-European root sta- (to stand, make or be firm).  The verb was related to praesto (ready, available).  The concept of "press ganging" to obtain men for military service is ancient but in the codified way it was done by the Royal Navy it remains the Admiralty's greatest contribution to HRM (human resource management).  

Rupert Murdoch (b 1931), Fleet Street, London, 1969.

Mr Murdoch is pictured with one of the first copies of the new The Sun newspaper, “hot off the press”, the print-run in November 1969 the first since his acquisition of the title.  Ownership of the The Sun proved handy because, after being compelled to close the long-running News of the World in the wake of the "phone hacking scandal", in 2012 Mr Murdoch created a Sunday edition of The Sun, meaning he needed to maintain only one 7-day tabloid rather than two (and the two titles were more similar than they were different); once again, following a crisis, things worked out rather well for Mr Murdoch.  It was Mr Murdoch who added the topless “Page 3 girls” to the Sun, prompting one media analyst to conclude: “Well, Rupert Murdoch has found a gap in the market, the oldest gap in the world”.

In 1969, the phrase “hot off the press” was literal because the old “hot type” presses used the heat in the hand-assembled metal plates to complete the chemical process by which ink end up on paper.  Prepared even to sustain loss-making mastheads if he thinks their continued existence fulfils some useful purpose (such as “influence” or “agenda-setting”), Mr Murdoch clearly retains some residual affection for the print titles on which he built his empire(s) but the old expression “printer's ink in his veins” now is nuanced because although his papers still consume much ink and paper, more than anyone he was responsible for the demise of the old “hot type” printing presses which had evolved over centuries.  Modern newspapers still are printed with a form of ink but, mostly using a process called web offset printing (a variant of offset lithography, optimized for speed and high throughput), that "ink" is so low in viscosity it’s better imagined as a paste.  Usually petroleum or soy-based, the substance is transferred from a metal plate to a rubber "blanket" and, as the newsprint (porous paper in continuous rolls) moves through the press, the ink is applied to the paper as shapes, text and images.  The ink’s chemistry is formulated to ensure absorption into newsprint is close to instantaneous; in this the mix differs from traditional inks which could take seconds or even minutes to dry to the point printed paper could be handled without smudging, drying now achieved almost wholly by absorption and evaporation, not heat-fusing.  To gain speed, there was a trade-off in quality in that being relatively thin, the ink produces less color saturation than is achieved by what’s used for glossy magazines (which is why newspaper images look softer or slightly grayish).  That is of course acceptable because newspapers have a short life, an idea encapsulated by the band the Rolling Stones that in 1967 sang “Who wants yesterday’s papers. Nobody in the world.” although the meaning of that track was better summed up in the line: “Who wants yesterdays girl.”

Cover girl Sydney Sweeney (b 1997) amply filling the cover of Cosmopolitan's “Love Edition”, January 2026; content providers like Ms Sweeny will help ensure the survival of at least some print titles.  A tablet computer and a printed glossy are just two different technologies and whether a magazine like Cosmopolitan or a newspaper like The Economist, reading the physical copy tends to be more pleasing, tactile experience.

However, just as Mr Murdoch was in the 1980s instrumental in consigning the old printing presses to the scrapheap (along with a substantial number of the unionized workforce previously employed to maintain and run them), he’s also seen technological advances impose not always welcome changes on his business model, some of the implications of which he discussed in 2006: “To find something comparable, you have to go back 500 years to the printing press, the birth of mass media – which, incidentally, is what really destroyed the old world of kings and aristocracies. Technology is shifting power away from the editors, the publishers, the establishment, the media elite. Now it’s the people who are taking control.”  He may have been too pessimistic because, in the 2020s, watching Mr Murdoch’s Fox News, it’s not immediately obvious the people have “taken control” and a more glum analysis suggests the elites merely have done what elites always have sought to do as conditions shift: keep the strategy, adjust the tactics.  Still, although printed newspapers no longer need to exist, nostalgic types who enjoy the ritualism of reading one spread on a table while taking a coffee (and maybe even a cigarette) will miss them when they’re gone so they at least will wish Mr Murdoch many more years of rude good health because whether the print titles will survive his (God forbid) death isn’t certain.  Despite that uncertainty, most analysts seem to believe print in its (possibly diminishing) niches will likely endure.  Some of the glossies continue to flourish and encouragingly, the pleasingly quirky automotive site Petrolicious (revived after being acquired by the duPont Registry Group in 2024) has brought back its printed, tabloid size monthly Petrolicious Post (US$9.00 cover price, US$108.00 annual subscription), the internet lowering the costs associated with such projects by permitting direct-to-customer distribution without the need to supply newsstands.

Most meanings related to pushing and exerting pressure had formed by the mid-fourteenth century and this had been extended to mean "to urge or argue for" by the 1590s.  The early fourteenth century pressen (to clasp, hold in embrace) extended in meaning by the mid century also to mean "to squeeze out" & "to cluster, gather in a crowd" and by the late 1300s, "to exert weight or force against, exert pressure" (and also "assault, assail" & "forge ahead, push one's way, move forward", again from the thirteenth century Old French presser (squeeze, press upon; torture)", from the Latin pressare (to press (the frequentative formation from pressus, past participle of premere (to press, hold fast, cover, crowd, compress), from the primitive Indo-European root per- (to strike)).  The sense of "to reduce to a particular shape or form by pressure" dates from the early fifteenth century while the figurative (“to attack”) use was recorded some decades earlier.  The meaning "to urge; beseech, argue for" dates from the 1590s.

The letter-press referred to matter printed from relief surfaces and was a term first used in the 1840s (the earlier (1771) description had been "text," as opposed to copper-plate illustration).  The noun pressman has occasionally been used to refer to newspaper journalists but in the 1590s it described "one who operates or has charge of a printing press" and was adopted after the 1610s to refer to "one employed in a wine-press".  A similar sharing of meaning attached to the pressroom which in the 1680s meant "a room where printing presses are worked" and by 1902 it was also a "room (in a courthouse, etc.) reserved for the use of reporters".  To press the flesh (shake hands) came into use in 1926 and a neglected use of “pressing” is as a form of torture.  Under a wide variety of names, pressing was a popular method of torture or execution for over four-thousand years; mostly using rocks and stones but elephants tended to be preferred in South and South-East Asia.  It’s a medieval myth that Henry VIII (1491–1547; King of England 1509-1547) invented pressing but he certainly adopted it as a method of torture with his usual enthusiasm for such things.  Across the channel, under the French civil code, Peine forte et dure (forceful and hard punishment) defined pressing.  Used when a defendant refused to plead, the victim would be subjected to having heavier and heavier stones placed upon his or her chest until a plea was entered, or as the weight of the stones on the chest became too great for the subject to breathe, fatal suffocation would occur.

Pressed for time: Giles Corey's Punishment and Awful Death (1692), a drawing held by the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington DC.  Watched by a presumably approving crowd, the technique was to place stones upon the board covering the unfortunate soul: The “straw which broke the camel’s back” principle.

Remembered as a method use for torture and to extract confessions, the technique of pressing was known often as “crushing” if used in executions or the unfortunate victim of a pressing were to die.  Giles Corey was a farmer of 81 who lived in south-west Salem village, Massachusetts who had been accused of witchcraft, then a fashionable charge in Salem (despite the perception, it wasn't only women who were arraigned as witches).  He chose not to enter a plea and simply remained mute in court, prompting the judges to order the coercive measure peine forte et dure, an ancient legal device dating from thirteenth century Anglo-Norman law and which translated literally as “a long and hard punishment”; it was used to persuade those who refused to engage in process to change their mind (ie forcing an accused to enter a plea).  In the First Statute of Westminster (3 Edward I. c. 12; 1275) it stated (in Sir Edward Coke’s (1552–1634) later translation):  “That notorious Felons, which openly be of evil name, and will not put themselves in Enquests of Felonies that Men shall charge them with before the Justices at the King’s suit, shall have strong and hard Imprisonment (prisone forte et dure), as they which refuse to stand to the common Law of the Land.”

Prisone forte et dure came into use because of the principle in English law that a court required the accused voluntarily to seek its jurisdiction over a matter before it could hear the case, the accused held to have expressed this request by entering a plea.  Should an accused refuse to enter a plea, the court could not hear the case which, constructively, was an obvious abuse of process in the administration of justice so the work-around was to impose a “coercive means”.  The First Statute of Westminster however refers to prisone forte et dure (a strong and hard imprisonment) and it does seem the original intent was to subject the recalcitrant to imprisonment under especially harsh conditions (bread & water and worse) but at some point in the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries there seems to have been a bit of mission creep and the authorities were interpreting things to permit pressing.  The earliest known document confirming a death is dated 1406 but it’s clear that by then pressing was not novel with the court acknowledging that if the coercive effect was not achieved, the accused certainly would die.  One who might have been pleased the law had moved on from torturing defendants who declined to enter a plea was Rudolf Hess (1894–1987; Nazi Deputy Führer 1933-1941).  Appearing before the IMT (International Military Tribunal) in the first Nuremberg Trial which heard the cases against two dozen of the surviving leading Nazis, those in the dock all pleaded "not guilty" except Hess who stood at the microphone, said "nein" (no) and walked back to his place.  Dryly, the IMT's president responded:  "That will be recorded as a plea of 'not guilty'".  There was laughter in the court.  

Pressed Duck

Caneton à la presse, Aus$190 (US$122) at Philippe Restaurant (Melbourne).

Pressed duck (In the French the dish described variously as canard à la presse, caneton à la presse, canard à la rouennaise, caneton à la rouennaise or canard au sang) is one of the set-pieces of traditional French cuisine and the rarity with which it's now served is accounted for not by its complexity but the time-consuming and labor-intensive steps in its preparation.  Regarded as a specialty of Rouen, the creation was attributed to an innkeeper from the city of Duclair.  Expensive and now really more of a set-piece event than a meal, pressed duck in the twenty-first century rarely appears on menus and is often subject to conditions such as being ordered up to 48 hours in advance or accompanied with the pre-payment of at least a deposit.  Inevitably too there will be limits on the number available because a restaurant will have only so many physical duck presses and if that’s just one, then it’s one pressed duck per sitting and, given what’s involved, that means one per evening.  Some high-end a la carte restaurants do still have it on the menu including La Tour d'Argent in Paris, Philippe Restaurant in Melbourne, Ottos in London, À L'aise in Oslo, The Charles in Sydney (a version with dry-aged Maremma duck) and Pasjoli in Los Angeles lists caneton à la presse as its signature dish.

Pressed duck sequence of events: The duck press (left), pressing the duck (centre) & pressed duck (right).

Instructions

(1) Select a young, plump duck.

(2) Wringing the neck, quickly asphyxiate duck, ensuring all blood is retained.

(3) Partially roast duck.

(4) Remove liver; grind and season liver.

(5) Remove breast and legs.

(6) Take remaining carcass (including other meat, bones, and skin) and place in duck-press.

(7) Apply pressure in press to extract and collect blood and other juices from carcass.

(8) Take extracted blood, thicken and flavor with the duck's liver, butter, and Cognac.  Combine with the breast to finish cooking.  Other ingredients that may be added to the sauce include foie gras, port wine, Madeira wine, and lemon.

(9) Slice the breast and serve with sauce as a first serving; the legs are broiled and served as the next course.

Silverplate Duck Press (Item# 31-9128) offered at M.S. Rau Antiques (Since 1912) in New Orleans at US$16,850.

According to culinary legend, the mechanism of the screw-type appliance was perfected in the late nineteenth century by chefs at the Tour d'Argent restaurant in Paris, the dish then called canard au sang (literally “duck in its blood”), a description which was accurate but presumably “pressed duck” was thought to have a wider appeal.  The example pictured is untypically ornate with exquisite foliate scrollwork and delicate honeycomb embossing on the base.  Although associated with the famous dish, outside of the serving period, chefs used duck presses for other purposes where pressing was required including the preparation of stocks or confits (various foods that have been immersed in a substance for both flavor and preservation).

Pressed duck got a mention in a gushing puff-piece extolling the virtues of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) which, in the pre-war years, was a remarkably fertile field of journalistic endeavour on both sides of the Atlantic.  William George Fitz-Gerald (circa 1970-1942) was a prolific Irish journalist who wrote under the pseudonym Ignatius Phayre and the English periodical Country Life published his account of a visit to the Berchtesgaden retreat on the invitation of his “personal friend” Adolf Hitler.  That claim was plausible because although when younger Fitz-Gerald’s writings had shown some liberal instincts, by the “difficult decade” of the 1930s, experience seems to have persuaded him the world's problems were caused by democracy and the solution was an authoritarian system, headed by what he called “the long looked for leader.”  Clearly taken by his contributor’s stance, in introducing the story, Country Life’s editor called Hitler “one of the most extraordinary geniuses of the century” and noted “the Führer is fond of painting in water-colours and is a devotee of Mozart.”

Country Life, March 1936 (both Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945, Hitler's designated successor & Reichsmarschall 1940-1945)   (1893–1946) and Werner von Blomberg (1878–1946; Reichsminister of War 1935-1938) (1878–1946) were then generals and not field marshals, von Blomberg raised to the rank in April 1936, Göring in February 1938).  Göring wearing the traditional southern German Lederhosen (leather pants) must have been a sight worth seeing.

Substantially, the piece in Country Life also appeared in the journal Current History with the title: Holiday with Hitler: A Personal Friend Tells of a Personal Visit with Der Führer — with a Minimum of Personal Bias”.  In hindsight it may seem a challenge for a journalist, two years on from the regime’s well-publicized murders of a least dozens of political opponents (and some unfortunate bystanders who would now be classed as “collateral damage”) in the pre-emptive strike against the so-called “Röhm putsch”, to keep bias about the Nazis to a minimum although many in his profession did exactly that, some notoriously.  It’s doubtful Fitz-Gerald visited the Obersalzberg when claimed or that he ever met Hitler because his story is littered with minor technical errors and absurdities such as Der Führer personally welcoming him upon touching down at Berchtesgaden’s (non-existent) aerodrome or the loveliness of the cherry orchid (not a species to survive in alpine regions).  Historians have concluded the piece was assembled with a mix of plagiarism and imagination, a combination increasingly familiar since the internet encouraged its proliferation.  Still, with the author assuring his readers Hitler was really more like the English country gentlemen with which they were familiar than the frightening and ranting “messianic” figure he was so often portrayed, it’s doubtful the Germans ever considered complaining about the odd deviation from the facts and just welcomed the favourable publicity.

So, those who complain about the early implementations of consumer generative AI (artificial intelligence) products "making stuff up" to "fill in the gaps" can be assured it's something with a long (if not noble) tradition among flesh & blood content providers whether they be the Nazi Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda or a working journalist hustling for a dollar.  Generative AI is likely for some time to remain in its "early implementation" phase so should be used with much the same approach as that taken by the inspection teams of the US & USSR when auditing the outcomes of various SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) agreements: "trust but verify".  As a working journalist, Fitz-Gerald became used to editing details so he could sell essentially the same piece to several different publications, cutting & pasting as required, Current History’s subscribers spared the lengthy descriptions of the Berghof’s carpets, curtains and furniture enjoyed by Country Life’s readers who were also able to learn of the food served at der Tabellenführer, the Truite saumonée à la Monseigneur Selle (salmon trout Monseigneur style) and caneton à la presse (pressed duck) both praised although in all the many accounts of life of the court circle’s life on the Obersalzberg, there no mention of the vegetarian Hitler ever having such things on the menu.

Indeed, in Erinnerungen (Memories or Reminiscences) and published in English as Inside the Third Reich (1969), Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945) recalled that belying the impression of excess created by the regime’s gaudy spectacles and monumentalist architecture, there was little extravagance at Hitler’s table, fresh vegetables his single gastronomic indulgence.  Describing things, Speer wrote: “The food was emphatically simple.  A soup, no appetizer, meat with vegetables and potatoes, a sweet.  For beverage we had a choice between mineral water, ordinary Berlin bottled beer, or a cheap wine.  Hitler was served his vegetarian food, drank Fachinger mineral water, and those of his guests who wished could imitate him.  But few did.  It was Hitler himself who insisted on this simplicity.  He could count on its being talked about in Germany.  Once, when the Helgoland fishermen presented him with a gigantic lobster, this delicacy was served at table, much to the satisfaction of the guests, but Hitler made disapproving remarks about the human error of consuming such ugly monstrosities. Moreover, he wanted to have such luxuries forbidden, he declared.  Göring seldom came to these meals.  Once, when I left him to go to dinner at the Chancellery, he remarked: ‘To tell the truth, the food there is too rotten for my taste.  And then, these party dullards from Munich!  Unbearable.’"

The tabloid press: On 29 November 2006, News Corp's New York Post ran its front page with a paparazzi photo of Lindsay Lohan (b 1986), Britney Spears (b 1981) and Paris Hilton (b 1981), the snap taken outside a Los Angeles nightclub, shortly before dawn.  Remembered for the classic tabloid headline Bimbo Summit, the car was Ms Hilton's Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren (C199 (2003-2009)).

The term "tabloid press" refers to down-market style of journalism designed to enjoy wide appeal through an emphasis on scandals, sensation and sport, featuring as many celebrities as possible.  The word tabloid was originally a trademark for a medicine which had been compressed into a small tablet, the construct being tab(let) + -oid (the suffix from the Ancient Greek -ειδής (-eidḗs) & -οειδής (-oeidḗs) (the ο being the last vowel of the stem to which the suffix is attached), from εἶδος (eîdos) (form, likeness)).  From the idea of the pill being the small version of something bigger, tabloid came to be used to refer to miniaturized iterations of a variety of stuff, newspapers being the best known use.  A tabloid is a newspaper with a compact page size smaller than broadsheet but despite the name, there is no standardized size for the format but it's generally about half the size of a broadsheet.  In recent decades, economic reality has intruded on the newspaper business and there are now a number of tabloid-sized newspapers (called "compacts" to distinguish them from the less reputable) which don't descend to the level of tabloid journalism (although there has been a general lowering of standards).

The Mean Girls (2004) Burn Book (left) and Lindsay Lohan burning an “inflammatory” tabloid magazine, Lindsay Lohan: The Obsession, GQ Magazine, October 2006.

In Mean Girls, the Burn Book gained its notoriety from being packed with inflammatory comments.  In a visual critique of the tabloid press's "obsession" with her (admittedly incident-packed young) life, Lindsay Lohan in 2006 posed for a photo-shoot by Terry Richardson (b 1965) for GQ (Gentlemen's Quarterly) magazine.  Titled Lindsay Lohan: The Obsession, the theme was her as a case-study of the way the “tabloid press” handled celebrity culture, the joke being a magazine with “inflammatory content about her” being literally set aflame, the glossy paper of course being flammable.  It’s appears a consensus in the “media studies” crew this aspect of “tabloid culture” peaked in the first dozen-odd years of the twenty-first century, the reasons for that including (1) the period having an exceptionally large cast of suitable subjects, (2) smart phones with HD (high-definition) cameras becoming consumer items meaning potential content proliferated (ie what once would not have been photographed now became available to editors as low cost images) and (3) social media sites not having attained critical mass, all factors which at the time enabled the lower-end glossies to flourish.

Pamphlet

Pamphlet (pronounced pam-flit)

(1) A complete publication, of undefined length with fewer pages than the shortest books (typically, 10-40 pages) and usually stitched or stapled with a paper or soft-cardboard cover (although the very early pamphlets tended to be unbound).

(2) A short treatise or essay, generally a controversial tract on some subject of contemporary interest, historically most associated with a political position.

(3) A kind of precursor newspaper containing literary compositions, advertisements and news (archaic).

(4) A brief handwritten work (obsolete) except in some university clubs and societies.

(5) To print (always rare and now obsolete) or distribute pamphlets (obsolete).

1375–1425: From the late Middle English pamphlet & pamphilet, from the earlier pamflet (brief written text; poem, tract, small book), from the Middle French pamphilet (influenced by the Anglo-Latin pamfletus, panfletus & paunflettus (short written text), a syncopated variant of Pamphiletus, diminutive of the twelfth century Medieval Latin Pamphilus, the short form of Pamphilus, seu de Amore (about love), a brief Latin erotic poem (Pamphilus the protagonist) that was popular and widely copied in the Middle Ages (it inspired also a number of comedies for the stage).  The name came from the Ancient Greek Πάμφιλος (Pámphilos), literally “beloved by all”), the construct being pan- (all) + philos (loving, dear).  Because the poems and dramatic works were issued in the short, easily carried format ideally suited to political or other statements, the widely circulated pamphlets lent their name to the whole phenomenon which, as a form of distribution can be imagined as the tweets or TikTok clips of their time.

The meaning once so associated with the word (brief work dealing with questions of current interest; short treatise or essay, generally controversial, on some topical subject) dates from the late sixteenth century, a time when for social and technological reasons, such publications became suddenly popular.  The noun pamphleteer (a writer of pamphlets) emerged in the 1640s and was applied even to activists who merely supported what was advocated, regardless of their involvement in distribution.  From that noun, by the 1690s, came the verb, used in the sense of “to write and issue pamphlets”.  The spellings pamphlette & pamphleter are functionally extinct.  The word pamphlet was adopted unchanged in French, German and Italian while in Spanish the form was Spanish: panfleto and in Portuguese panfleto.  Pamphlet, pamphleteering & pamphleteer are nouns & verbs, pamphletry & pamphleting are nouns, verb & adjective, pamphletful & pamphletism are nouns, pamphleteered & pamphletize, pamphletizes & pamphletizing are verbs, pamphletary & pamphletic are adjectives and pamphletwise is an adverb; the noun plural is pamphlets (pamphleteers has become rare since the predominant meaning shift from polemics to information although some political scientists are fond).

Areopagitica; A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc'd Printing, to the Parlament of England (1644).  A slim work of 30 pages, long titles were then a thing for pamphlets.  Areopagitica (the title references both the democratic traditions of Ancient Greece and the words of Saint Paul in the New Testaments Book of Acts (17:18-34)) was written in prose and was one of the more influential pamphlets extolling the virtues of the principle of freedom of speech and expression.

The pamphlet was the platform of choice for many writers noted for the vigor of their religious or political views including Sir Thomas More (1478–1535), William Tyndale (circa 1494–1536), Gerrard Winstanley (circa 1609–1676), John Milton (1608–1674), Daniel Defoe (circa 1660–1731), Thomas Dekker (circa 1572–1632), Jonathan Swift (1667–1745), Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822), and the many nineteenth century Chartists.  In this form, it was in England the pamphlet first flourished because unlike in much of Europe, censorship by the state was less restrictive and the power of the churches diminished.  Still, authors did need to be careful and after making the mistake of travelling to Europe where priests still held sway, Tyndale was convicted of heresy and strangled while tied to the stake, actually a merciful act because his body was burned only after death.  In France, the turbulent years of revolutions, empire and wars (1789-1848) were also the “pamphlet decades”, the streets a “battleground of ideas” as well as barricades and bayonets.

The Federalist Papers (Signet Classics edition, 2003) with an introduction, textual notes and a select bibliography by US political scientist Charles R. Kesler (b 1956); since 1788, the book has never been out-of-print.  As well as the obvious importance as a historic document, the contents are of interest if contrasted in content and breadth of ambition with current political discourse.

Among the most famous pamphlets are a few dozen which are remembered not in their original format but as the compilation into which they were assembled for publication the book The Federalist Papers (1788).  The Federalist Papers were literally that, 85 tracts written by Alexander Hamilton (circa 1756-1804), James Madison (1751-1836) and John Jay (1745-1829) and simultaneously in 1787-1788 published in New York newspapers and issued as pamphlets under the pseudonym “Publius”.  The purpose was to encourage ratification of the new US Constitution which had emerged from the Federal Convention in September 1787 and although knowledge of the identity of the authors was widespread, the authors chose “Publius” in a nod to Publius Valerius Publicola, one of the founders of the ancient Roman Republic.  What the pamphleteers wanted was “endorsement by association”; because Publicola translated as “friend of the people” the notion was to link their arguments with republican virtue and the protection of the people from monarchical despotism.

An edition of Some reflections on a pamphlet lately publish'd, entituled, An argument shewing that a standing army is inconsistent with a free government (1697) by Daniel Defoe.

Many of Defoe's pamphlets were not at the time attributed to him although than didn't save him from spending three days in the pillory after political power in the country suddenly shifted.  Nor were most of his novels originally published under his name.  In early eighteenth century England, anonymity was common for those writing novels because prose fiction had neither become “respectable” or solidified as a clearly labeled genre, the objection being the stuff simply wasn’t “true”.  That’s why works like Robinson Crusoe (1719) were marketed as “histories” or “lives”, anonymity helping to sustain the illusion the text was genuine testimony rather than invention.

Meaning shifts in English are not uncommon but the semantic shift of “pamphlet” was an example of a process in which there was first a broadening of use followed by something of a drift rather than a simple replacement. In terms of content, the original sense (which flourished between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries) had nothing to do with the source of the name which came from a Latin love poem which remained popular in the late medieval & early modern period.  Although there were a handful of examples of Pamphilus, seu de Amore which had been “embellished and extended” by opportunist authors, almost all versions were distributed as folios of a few pages and because this length was ideal for presenting political or theological polemics to a public unlikely to read (and, importantly, pay for) full-length books on the topics, these came to be known as “pamphlets” and those writing the overwhelmingly religious and political tracts were thus pamphleteers.  Until well into the eighteenth century, the word “pamphlet” was used for no other purpose than this canonical historical sense but in the 1800s a noticeable broadening happened in the UK which historians link with (1) the economies of scale offered by improvement in industrial printing, (2) rising literacy levels (3) a heightened interest in political matters as a consequence of the franchise being extended by the Reform Acts (1832, 1867 & 1884), (4) a splintering of various religious denominations and (5) the reduction in the cost of distribution (the extension of road and rail systems).

Pamphlet dealing with STIs (sexually transmitted infections) which used to be called STDs (sexually transmitted diseases) or VD (venereal disease).  Note the reassuring pastel hues.

While the interaction of all these forces meant there were more political and religious tracts (ironically, at a time when matters concerning the latter were becoming less controversial), the short, digestible form of the cheaply-produced pamphlet came to have great appeal in commerce so the term came to be used of just about any small, free booklet.  In an indication that while the means of distribution have changed, the strategy has not, the folk paid a tiny sum to stand on the platforms of railway stations and hand out pamphlets to commuters were fulfilling the same task as the algorithms used to deliver advertising to inboxes and web-pages.  Really, only the targeting has much improved but linguistically, this was the crucial shift; from content-focused to format-defined.  Over time, the proliferation of product announcements, catalogues, and advertising subsumed the original meaning but despite that, many etymologists seem to suggest the association of “pamphlets” with “advertising” didn’t become prevalent until the early twentieth century.

What modern targeted-marketing made an effected tool was the “virtual pamphlet” delivered by companies to digital inboxes of all sorts.  What lands in the inbox of one user will have content optimized for what that user’s history suggests will most likely provoke engagement (and hopefully sell stuff) while the user sitting in the adjacent cubicle might receive something with different content.  In the pre-modern days of printed pamphlets, it was a one-size-fits-all approach although even then a primitive form of targeting was possible; the pamphlets a manufacturer might place in a shop selling women’s shoes would likely be different from the stack in the men’s store.  However, as technology improved and costs further fell (two symbiotic forces) the forms of the printed ephemera of commerce proliferated and the documents became variously smaller, larger, thicker, slimmer, glossier and more colourful which demanded a new descriptive language, thus the emergence or re-purposing of “posters”, “catalogues”, “flyers”, “handbills”, “booklets”, “brochures”, “bulletins”, “folders”, “handouts”, “handbills” and “leaflets”.  With this new generation of forms, the idea of the “tract” which was once synonymous with “pamphlet” became separated and restricted to those documents which were still polemics on religion, politics, policy or some other topical matter.  Pamphlet thus didn’t until later become associated with commercial advertising with “brochure” or “catalogue” used for the more polished publications with the highest production values (indeed, auction houses handling high-priced collectables routinely charge for their glossy catalogues) while “leaflet”, “handbill”, “flyer” and such was used of simpler, often single-sheet and sometimes monochrome.  All this meant by the early twentieth century pamphlet had lost the “exclusivity of seriousness”, something exemplified by a heritage running from Jonathan Swift to The Federalist Papers.

Ocala Plastic Surgery and the Wuxi Sweet Fastener Company both sell solutions to problems but just as their products differ, so do the dynamics of their pamphlets.  Whether pamphlet, catalogue, poster or whatever, content can to some extent dictate form and method.  Ocala Plastic Surgery distributes brochures which not only are information-dense about the range of services offered but also includes visual content designed to entice; even the color choices are part of the messaging.  By contract, the Wuxi Sweet Fastener Company is really providing a list of products and specifications with the photography not at all artistic but most informative.  Not being in markets like Victoria's Secrets or Ocala Plastic Surgery, the Wuxi Sweet Fastener Company uses mostly functional black text on a white background with the odd splash of color there just to draw the eye to a corporate logo or heading.

So the word “pamphlet” became “neutral” because it came to describe a printed format with no implication of content, modern pamphlets typically either instructional, containing information or advertising.  That doesn’t mean there are no longer printed documents described as “political pamphlets” but those which still appear in letter-boxes around election time are better thought of as flyers, usually with a photograph of a smiling candidate and the odd TWS (three word slogan).  The content of pamphlets of the type widely circulated centuries ago has now been relegated to essays published in specialized periodicals and for these “long-form” pieces, readers of course have to pay for the privilege.  In that sense, the “pamphlet” is a historic relic sometimes seen in literary use although, curiously, in political science, politicians with a habit of writing pieces beyond a TWS are still sometimes dubbed “pamphleteers”.  One crew which still occasionally hands outs longer tracts in the style of the old religious pamphlets is the Jehovah's Witnesses but they’re something of a rarity, even a dedicated lot like the Falun Gong prone to modernist brevity.  That leaves some other terms to be described:

Tract: A doctrinal or moral argument in small format, a tract now is understood as a (relatively) short written work advancing a specific doctrine or moral argument.  Whether this is in a simple, accessible form or a dense piece littered with jargon likely to be understood only by other specialists in the field is determined not only by the subject but also the place of publication.  A tract discussing troubles in the Middle East will be different in form depending on whether it appears in a tabloid newspaper or a journal like Foreign Affairs, and that’s one aspect of what Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) explained as “…the medium is the message…” in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964).

Broadsheet: Most associated with the now mostly extinct large-form newspaper, the term “broadsheet was used to describe a large-format single sheet for public display.  A broadsheet (broadside also used) could be similar in size to a “poster” and was also a large sheet of paper (or cardboard or other flat surface), printed on one side and designed to be posting in some public place affording wide visibility.  Broadsheets often were used for announcements, news or proclamations by governments and often featured a mix of bold and dense text, woodcut illustrations once a popular inclusion.  The information could include public notices (executions, laws, events, rewards offered for this and that).

Poster for French market release of The Canyons (2013). 

Poster: Although often thought a twentieth century form, the poster is an ancient medium and definitionally it now differs from a broadsheet in that it seeks to convey a message with the use of image rather than text.  Additionally, when text does appear on a poster (and most do include some), especially in the larger formats, it’s often in a stylized form or a typeface which is obviously “artistic”.  The poster is a practical example of the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” and there have been some memorable eras in posters as graphic art in the twentieth century assumed a previously denied respectability.  In part this was due to the new movements in art (futurism, orphism, cubism etc) being ideally suited to the poster's traditional rectangular aspect but the finest in the genre were probably those in the traditions of art deco, pop art and psychedelia.  Posters, although two-dimensional and static, remain popular appear to have weathered the onset of digital (and may even have benefited from the technology) and it seems likely AI (artificial intelligence) will also be adapted.

Circular: A circular is a document periodically distributed to a targeted, defined audience.  There is no one definition of what a circular looks like, it may be brief or long and come in a variety of (usually smallish) sizes but its core purpose tends to be  the dissemination of informational deemed to be of interest to the audience (or, at least, that in which it’s thought they should be interested).  The classic circulars are now those used for institutional communication (churches great users of the concept).

Victoria’s Secrets catalogue which, on the internet, works as a kind of combination of advertising copy and interactive database.

Catalogue: Catalogues have a long history in modern commerce and the model used by Amazon and such is exactly the same as the old “mail order catalogues” which in the nineteenth century the Americans perfected as a means of distributing goods (via the US Mail) over vast distances.  What has changed is the immediacy; while something ordered through Amazon can land on one’s porch within 24 hours, goods ordered from a mail-order catalogue might not be seen for weeks.  Still, the principle remains the same.  A catalogue is understood as a list of products and that may be as simple as pages of text or accompanied by lavish and tempting illustrations.

Brochure: A brochure is a “puff-piece” and a kind of advertising pamphlet.  A brochure may focus on a single product, a number of products or a manufacturer’s entire range.  Accordingly, a brochure may be a single page or a longer document which is distinguished from a catalogue only in the level of detail tending to be greater.

1961 Ford Galaxie Starliner (left) & 1962 Galaxie with “distinguished hardtop styling” (aka “boxtop”, right)

There are even “fake brochures”.  The aerodynamic qualities the 1960-1961 Ford Galaxie Starliner, possessed by virtue of its gently sloping rear roof-line, generated both speed and stability on the NASCAR (National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing) ovals; that made it a successful race-car but in the showrooms, after some early enthusiasm, sales dropped so it was replaced in 1962 with an implementation of the “formal” style which had been so well-received when used on the Thunderbird.  As the marketing department predicted (or, more correctly, worked out from the results of their focus-group sessions), what they called “distinguished hardtop styling” proved more commercially palatable but while customers may have been seduced, the physics of fluid dynamics didn’t change and the “buffeting” induced at speeds above 140 mph (225 km/h) limited performance, adversely affected straight-line stability (especially when in close proximity to other cars); it also increased fuel consumption, in distance racing especially, something as significant as weight, speed and power.  What the “distinguished hardtop styling” had done was make the Galaxie less competitive on the circuits, the loss of up to 3 mph (5 km/h) in top speed the difference being winning and losing; putting on the lipstick had produced a pig.

Beware of imitations: Images from Ford's 1962 Galaxie Starlift “brochure” which didn't fool the NASCAR scrutineers. 

Quickly to regain the lost aerodynamic advantage, Ford fabricated a handful of detachable fibreglass hard-tops which could be “bolted on”, essentially transforming a Galaxie convertible back into something as slippery (and even a little lighter) as the previous Starliner.  Having no intention of incurring the expense of designing and engineering them to an acceptable consumer standard (which they knew few anyway would buy) Ford simply gave the hand-made plastic roof the name “Starlift”, allocated a part-number and even mocked-up a brochure for NASCAR's officials to read.  Although on paper it appeared a FADC (factory-authorized dealer accessory) like any other (floor-mats, mud flaps etc), an inspection of the device revealed it was obviously phoney, the rear passenger glass on each side not fitting the sloping C-pillar, demanding the use of a pair of tacked-on plastic fillers to close the gap and it was obvious the thing wasn’t close to being waterproof.  Although prepared to turn a blind eye when it suited them, NASCAR thought all this beyond the pale and outlawed the scam.

Triumph Stag magazine advertising: Although conforming to the general specifications of a “flyer” (one page, single side printing, single purpose theme), magazine advertising tended to use the style and techniques of brochures, some would classify this as a “brochure” because of the shared design language.  Because of constraints of space, such advertising usually didn’t contain the wealth of technical details which typically were included in catalogues.

Political campaign flyers: Physical copies printed for crooked Hillary Clinton’s (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) campaign in the New Hampshire Primary seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination for the 2008 US presidential election (left) and a digital template for those supporting Donald Trump (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) in the 2024 US presidential election.  Crooked Hillary’s flyer was distributed by her campaign team; the Trump material was hosted by various Republican-aligned PACs (political action committees).

Flyer, handbill & leaflet: Whether in form or content a flyer, handbill or leaflet differ really doesn’t matter and the three terms are used interchangeably, the choice a function of local practice.  All three imply something small, cheap and “handed-out” (often in the literal sense of someone standing on a street-corner) for some limited, specific purpose (such as a new sushi bar opening around the corner).  The small leaflets came to be known as flyers (the original term in late 1880s US use was “fly-sheet”) on the notion of “made to be scattered around” (ie, the image of stuff “flying around”).  Prior to “flyer” catching on, such papers were called “hand-bills”, that term based on “billboards” (large, poster sized displays) so a handbill was “a bill conveniently held in the hand”.