I don’t normally update you all on the latest bells and whistles introduced by Google, but this is a huge addition to the material available for searching, and their announcement starts with an etymology, so how could I resist?
The word “magazine” is derived from the Arabic word “makhazin,” meaning storehouse. Since Daniel Defoe published the world’s first English magazine back in 1704, millions of magazines catering to nearly every imaginable taste have been created and consumed, passed from person to person in cafes, barber shops, libraries, and homes around the world. If you’re wondering what cars people drove in the eighties or what was in fashion thirty years ago, there’s a good chance that you’ll find that answer in a magazine. Yet few magazine archives are currently available online.
Today, we’re announcing an initiative to help bring more magazine archives and current magazines online, partnering with publishers to begin digitizing millions of articles from titles as diverse as New York Magazine, Popular Mechanics, and Ebony…
Explore other publications, like Popular Science, New York Magazine, or (for you physics enthusiasts) the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, to rediscover historical interviews, do-it-yourself articles, and even a piece on canine eyewear…. You can search for magazines through Google Book Search. … Magazine articles are tagged with the keyword “Magazine” on the search snippet.
Via stavrosthewonderchicken at MetaFilter, where I note with sadness but no surprise the following comment: “There are a number of missing issues of several of the magazines.”
titles as diverse as New York Magazine, Popular Mechanics, and Ebony…Explore other publications, like Popular Science, New York Magazine
I didn’t know Gogol owned New York Magazine.
Another nice thing about this is that when these magazine results pop up in a normal book search, the search result shows the issue date, volume and number (and number of pages in the issue). This is in contrast to earlier journals/periodicals they scanned in libraries, for which they show only the series start date, and you have to hunt around for the pub date. It would be nice if they would eventually go back and fix that. It’s a big job, but Google doesn’t seem to mind that kind of thing.
You can see the problem of the missing issues — just click on any magazine and then the “browse all issues” link–many of them (Jet is one, in particular) skip an issue or two here and there, and some of them are mis-dated (particularly weeklies, where some issues are listed with a month and year but are missing the date, which makes it appear there’s a missing issue, but the missing issue is actually listed out of sequence as [month/year]).
Hopefully Google will go back and fix this, too.
It would be nice if they would eventually go back and fix that.
For “nice” read “the least they could do.”
The etymology of “magazine” made me think of the word “divan” — and lo, LH has already discussed it.
The etymology of “magazine” made me think of the word “divan” — and lo, LH has already discussed it.
Curious etymology. In the Finnish language, the word ‘makasiini’ means warehouse, or storehouse, especially for the Finnish Railway’s old buildings in Helsinki. But magazines are also called ‘makasiini’. I imagine the former is an old word usage, the latter an adoption of an English word.
Well, technically makhazin is the plural of makhzan.
Aha! so it’s cognate to the Spanish almacén (from al-makhzan). I suppose the fact that one derives from the singular and one from the plural means that the borrowings happened independently?
Vasha, you are right about independent borrowings.
The word magazine or in French magasin has the original meaning “storehouse” or “warehouse” in most languages that have adopted the word. The modern meaning of “a regular publication covering a variety of topics” derives from the earlier one: this is a “virtual storehouse” of all sorts of knowledge. In French un magasin is either a warehouse (staffed by people called magasiniers) or a store, especially a large one. The first department stores were (and still are) called grands magasins. One of the first magazines for women was called Le magasin des dames et des demoiselles (“the magazine/warehouse for (married) ladies and young ladies”). Later the English word magazine having come to refer to a publication, was adopted into French with that meaning.
The first department stores were (and still are) called grands magasins.
The first of these was, in fact, in Paris. I’ll find a link later…
Le Bon Marché is supposed to be the first department store. There’s another one in Ireland that also claims to be oldest on some technicality, like being in business longer — but, really, which would you rather have as the world’s first department store: Austin’s in Derry or Le Bon Marché in Paris? They’re both from the middle of the nineteenth-century. Zola wrote Au Bonheur des Dames about the department store. I haven’t read it, but it sounds really quite interesting.
The Hudson Bay Company survives as a department Store Chain. But originally it was something else.
The Hudson Bay Company survives as a department Store Chain. But originally it was something else.
Please do not forget the great magazine that goes boom when it is warehousing processed dung or storing bullets for thinning out the populace
damn you hat for making me look at google books again, if there’s a more infuriating presence on the web I have no idea where or what it is (okay JOSTR is close).
grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Vasha: it is typical of nouns of Arabic origin in Iberian Romance languages that they are found with the Arabic definite article, whereas Arabic nouns borrowed in the Italian peninsula (which mostly entered Sicilian first, and thence spread north) typically lack the definite article: thus one finds occasional doublets where the same Arabic word was borrowed with the definite article in the Iberian peninsula and without it in Italy, such as MAGASIN/ ALMACEN. Another such doublet is Spanish ARROZ versus Italian RISO (English RICE is of course from the Italian form, probably via French RIZ).
German has Magazin in both meanings, though guess what the z is pronounced as…
Not just Romance. Basque azoka “market” is directly from Arabic as-suq (plus the Basque definite article at the end).
Zola wrote Au Bonheur des Dames [Ladies’ Happiness] about the department store.
It is mostly about the employees of the store, especially the poorly-paid salesgirls, who have to put up a good front no matter what. Like other Zola novels it is harrowing in places.
“Harrowing”? Well, that’s one way to put it.
I could deal with the emasculation of Maigrat (?), but the final necrophilia was too much.
You seem to think of “harrowing” as a mild adjective; I myself think of it as a very strong one, and the developments you mention would certainly be covered by it.
Au Bonheur des Dames [Ladies’ Happiness]
According to the copy I just looked at it’s currently translated as The Ladies’ Delight, which is marginally more reasonable as the name of a department store. It seems even the real Parisian ones had gayer or at least less boring names than their London counterparts: Wm Whiteley, Barkers of Kensington and Harrods and the rest, all (even Liberty’s) named after their owners as were Macy’s and others in the United States. Pais has Le Bon Marché, La Samaritaine — Wiki says this name comes from a hydraulic pump installed near the Pont Neuf, which operated from 1609 to 1813. The front of the pump featured a gilded relief of the Good Samaritan — and Le Printemps.
Having considered your warning I’m going to take the plunge and buy it.
Not mild. Just not strong enough.
Sili, “harrowing” has always seemed to me to be a pretty strong adjective, and Mr Hat obviously agrees. What would you suggest as an even stronger replacement?
“La Samaritaine”: This was a public fountain. “The Good Samaritan” can refer to either gender in English, but there are two kindly Samaritans in the Gospels. The Good Samaritan (le bon Samaritain) usually refers to the (fictional) man who rescued a traveller left for dead by brigands, in one of the parables. La Samaritaine (the Samaritan woman) was a woman who gave water to Jesus from her well. This was the person represented on the fountain, which provided water for all who needed it. The department store is located near the former site of the fountain.
AJP, I agree, “Ladies’ Delight” is a better translation for the title. It is grimly ironical, given that there is little delight in the lives of those working in a place that promises it, and in the lives of some of the customers as well.
The French names of those department stores (real or fictional) officially include not just an article but a contraction of à and the article: Au Bon Marché, Au Bonheur des Dames, even though in conversation, depending on the sentence, the article is often used by itself to refer to the place (le Bon Marché, etc). The use of the preposition (even when hidden together with the article) goes back to the time when every shop or inn or similar place had a distinctive, usually pictorial sign, hanging outside it in order to identify itself to potential customers. The full designation of the shop, etc included both the owner’s name and the sign: for instance Chez XY, à l’enseigne du Chat Noir (XY’s place, at the sign of the Black Cat), so familiarly Au Chat Noir. In England it seems that the then new department stores went with the owner’s name only, while the pubs continued with the pictorial signs and their descriptions.
( in my last sentence I had written “new department stores and” a word which I will write h.o.t.e.l.s since the usual spelling was refused for questionable content. I was referring to the rise of such monster (for the time) establishments in the second half of the 19th century).
That’s really interesting, Marie-Lucie. With the French department stores it’s almost as if they were using the ‘au’ as a subtle and early form of advertising, or, more acurately, branding. It’s too bad it didn’t catch on in Britain too, I rather like it. I don’t know, either, why there’s no equivalent of ‘chez’ in English since it occurs in Germen Spanish and Italian too (also Norwegian, ‘hos meg, hos deg’). What’s the big department store in Berlin, I’ve forgotten the name..?
Kaufhaus des Westens?
I deleted “hotels” from the blacklist; that was doubtless from one of those occasions when there was a flood of spam featuring a particular item (in this case hotels) and I got impatient and said “Screw it, I’ll just ban the word.” And then later I regret it.
That’s right. KadeWe is from 1905 and is kind of similar to the French names, although it’s really more like ‘Toys R Us’, a description of what it is. Whereas Au Bonne Marché or Galleries Lafayette makes it sound like you’re going to have a jolly good time shopping. They (Paris) do have that food place, Fauchon, but I’d say that’s an expanded grocers rather than a department store.
Au Bonne Marché or Galleries Lafayette
(cringe) it is Au Bon Marché (masculine word) as written above. Also Les Galeries Lafayette with one l. Here the word galerie is used to evoke a covered area along a building, where typically small shops or day vendors sell all kinds of merchandise (this is still the case on the streets along some department stores, but those little businesses are unconnected with the big stores). Lafayette is not the name of the owner but of one of the neighbouring streets. The (super-luxurious) food place is commonly known as Chez Fauchon.
Sorry about the spellings, articles and agreements, there’s a limit to the amount of time I can devote to checking French and cringing won’t change that. There is no inference to be drawn from what I wrote that Lafayette was the name of the owner. That is the point, actually.
there’s a limit to the amount of time I can devote to checking French
I may have to consider docking your salary, Kron.
Or raising it. As it is, I can’t afford to maintain three initials.
AJP: there’s a limit to the amount of time I can devote to checking French
I would not normally cringe (or I would keep my cringing strictly to myself) just because someone made a spelling mistake in French, but since the words Bon Marché appeared in a comment of mine almost immediately before yours, all you had to do was highlight the words and paste them in your response. It is not as if I was expecting you to check the words in a dictionary. (But I forgive you for now).
As for the Galeries Lafayette, I was not making any assumptions about your interpretation but giving an explanation for people not familiar with the place, especially since Americans might be wondering what Lafayette had to do with a department store.
I don’t know. I guess I need to recalibrate my adjectivometer. Sorry.
Thank for the temporary forgiveness — always welcome, however limited. In the circumstances, ‘wince’ might have been a better verb than ‘cringe’, which has the additional Uriah Heap-ish implied stigma of servility that’s just not you. I don’t cut and paste that sort of thing, however reliable the source, it’s much too slow.
AJP, here you don’t even need to cut, just highlight the words and paste them. How much faster to you need to be?
But thank you for pointing out the distinction between cringe and wince. How horrible to be unwittingly associated with Uriah Heap! Here in Canada cringe does not seem to have the implications you mention.
Thanks to additional help I’ve been getting from Siganus, I’ve found my French has got much worse than I had thought. I will have to start pasting.
No, you’re not the cringing type, m-l, you’re more of a wincer. (I would put a smiling face here, but I don’t think you use them).
Heep’s cringing was excessive and constant. M-L’s cringe here was quite appropriate in the meaning she intended.
It is said that Heep was modeled on Hans Christian Anderson, who had an extremely unprepossessing personality and imposed on Dickens in a worshipful kind of way.
Heep’s cringing was excessive and constant. M-L’s cringe here was quite appropriate in the meaning she intended.
It is said that Heep was modeled on Hans Christian Anderson, who had an extremely unprepossessing personality and imposed on Dickens in a worshipful kind of way.
Imposed? Yes, and what I heard was that he wouldn’t leave. I think he stayed with Dickens for five weeks, or something like that, and his personality was not so much unprepossessing as boring. I may have made this up, but I think I read it speculated that he may have had Aspurger’s. He also had a very unusual appearance, and that was badly handled in those days, even in Denmark.
I didn’t say m-l’s cringe was a misuse of the word, only that ‘wince’ doesn’t carry the extra baggage of also meaning obsequious.
If I recall correctly HCA was rather fanboyish with Dickens and he visited at a time when the latters marriage was falling apart (the former never married, so I needn’t have specified).
I think Dickens was said to have liked him, though, if I remember right.
Thank you, AJP and John Emerson, for coming to my defence.