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Jing Jiewu Posted 9 years ago
Vocabulary
shrivelled trolls
These are clusters of sentences selected from Simon Schama's Scribble, Scribble, Scribble: Writing on Politics, Ice Cream, Churchill, and My Mother, where he narrates his experience in Fleet Street in the 1950s,
'The Daily Mirror had it all, I thought: shrivelled trolls with the right kind of fungal pallor, chained to machines that chattered out type; trays of set pages; even the occasional green eyeshade; the whole wizard’s den culminating in sheets of raw newsprint cascading into bins.'
What confuses me greatly is the part in bold type. I find no connection between trolls and printing machine. Does 'trolls' bear a metaphorical usage of the meaning 'a dwarf or a giant in Scandinavian folklore' or do
I simply misunderstand it?
'The Daily Mirror had it all, I thought: shrivelled trolls with the right kind of fungal pallor, chained to machines that chattered out type; trays of set pages; even the occasional green eyeshade; the whole wizard’s den culminating in sheets of raw newsprint cascading into bins.'
What confuses me greatly is the part in bold type. I find no connection between trolls and printing machine. Does 'trolls' bear a metaphorical usage of the meaning 'a dwarf or a giant in Scandinavian folklore' or do
I simply misunderstand it?
Top answer
Jing Jiewu I find no connection between trolls and printing machine. He is describing the reporters who are typing their stories on old-fashioned type-setting (linotype) machines. See old photos here.
- Jing Jiewu I find no connection between trolls and printing machine.
- He is describing the reporters who are typing their stories on old-fashioned type-setting (linotype) machines.
- See old photos here.
- excludenudity=true&sort=mostpopular&mediatype=photography&phrase=linotype
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4 Answers
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Jing Jiewu I find no connection between trolls and printing machine.He is describing the reporters who are typing their stories on old-fashioned type-setting (linotype) machines.
See old photos here.
http://www.gettyimages.com/license/82118389
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Thank you so much.Since 'the trolls' refers to those reporters,I wonder if 'shrivelled trolls with the right kind of fungal pallor' means those reporters who are in huddling posture with unhealthily pale skin? I'm not really sure about it.
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Jing Jiewu those reporters who are in huddling posture with unhealthily pale skin? IYes. All of them looked like shriveled trolls (interpretation: old men with outdated ideas who never went outside to discover new things..)
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