Re: Ink stained wretch

Posted by RRC on January 09, 2008

In Reply to: Re: Ink stained wretch posted by ESC on January 06, 2008

: : : Please help me find who wrote, said, or ? and date -
: : : something like "ink stained wretch"?

: :
: : The phrase "ink-stained wretch" is often applied to newspaper writers. There have been claims that it should not be applied to female writers, and it has also been broadened to include writers generally.

: : One columnists tries to assign authorship, somewhat implausibly, to a Toronto sports writer named Trent Frayne.
: :
: : 'Lunch with a legend

: : 'Trent Frayne looks damn good. For a lunchtime conversation, he is wearing a Hugo Boss jacket, matching slacks and a Polo golf shirt. Class.
: : This from the original ink-stained wretch, a phrase he may have invented and surely popularized during a four-decade reign as a Toronto sports columnist that included nine years at the Sun.

: : '"Oh, I don't know that I made up ink-stained wretch," he said playfully. "Probably stole it. It happens, you know."'

: : This is from:

: : http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Columnists/Ulmer/2005/05/20/1048736.html

: : At the time, in May 2005, Frayne was 86 years old.

: : On a "forum for collectors to discuss Bloods, Penny Dreadfuls and Dime Novels," one of the entries is:

: : "To the Sacred Memory of the Ink-Stained Wretch" an humorous article on the dip-pen which refers to G. W. M. Reynolds as "the great Procurator of Hackerium;"
: : http://www.worldbookdealers.com/articles/ar/ar0000000471.asp

: : The URL didn't work for me. See, for the citation,

: : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BloodsandDimeNovels/message/1713

: : I have only seen a tiny fraction of the 171,000 or so hits this phrase brings up on Google. Perhaps you'll find more useful results by Googling yourself.
: : SS

: I looked in my quote books and couldn't find it. Interesting question though. (I was a journalism major.)

Google News Archive shows cites back to 1921 when Mr. Frayne would have been only 2 years old so it seems unlikely that he is the original source.