Everyone Is Jumping Off the Brooklyn Bridge

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Words to Your Mother: Colporteur

A colporteur (or colporter) is generally defined as a "peddler of religious literature", although I think the Dictionary.com Unabridged edition is a bit more accurate: "A person who travels to sell or publicize Bibles, religious tracts, etc." or "a peddler of books".  In other words:

  1. They don't have to sell the books as long as the books are religious.  (That is, they can distribute the books in ways other than selling them.)
  2. The publications they distribute don't have to be books, per se.
  3. The books don't have to be religious as long as they are selling them.
Obviously, the first and third definitions are the opposite ends of the spectrum for this.

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3 Comments:

At 1:16 PM, Blogger Nancy said...

What? No Cole Porter jokes? I thought at least you'd add, the colporteur doesn't have to peddle these books Night and Day, but hey, Anything Goes!

 
At 10:46 PM, Blogger Ishmael said...

I thought about it, but when I asked myself "Why Shouldn't I?", It Was Just One of Those Things. Honestly, I was reluctant to use such an obvious gag, and I was more absorbed by the research into the word itself. From This Moment On I'll go ahead and do them anyway. ;)

 
At 9:34 AM, Blogger Nancy said...

Nice!

 

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