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.
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 cam 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”. 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. 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).
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.
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 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 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.
Pressed Duck
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 is now rarely appears on
menus and is often subject to conditions such as being ordered as much as 48
hours in advance or 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.
The sequence of pressing a duck: 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 (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) and Werner von Blomberg
(1878–1946) were then generals and not field marshals). Hermann Göring wearing the traditional
southern German Lederhosen (leather breeches) 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 or 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.
As a
working journalist used to editing details so he could sell essentially the
same piece to several different publications, he inserted and deleted 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.
The tabloid press: On 29 November 2006, News Corp's New York
Post ran its front page with a paparazzi photo of Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, the snap taken just prior to dawn in outside a Los Angeles
nightclub. Remembered for the 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 which don't descend to the level of tabloid journalism (although
there has been a general lowering of standards).
