Thursday, January 20, 2011

Grangerize

Grangerize \GRYEN-juh-rahyz\ , verb;
1. To add to the visual content of a book by inserting images not included in the original volume, often by mutilating other books
2. To mutilate books in order to get illustrative material for such a purpose

I think it's kind of funny that the name of one of the libraries at my alma mater was named Grainger...

Grangerize derives from a man's name, James Granger. In 1769, Granger published a 'Biographical History of England' and purposefully inserted blank pages for engraved portraits or other illustrations. People really got a kick out of filling these blank pages; grangerizing them, if you will, and thus the word was born. People liked it so much they grangerized other books in a similar manner.

Today's word and the first definition were both taken from Dictionary.com's 'Word of the Day' for Thursday, January 20
Etymologies come from the Oxford English Dictionary and/or Etymonline.com

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