News of the Screws
- proper noun
- Offensive
:
[apodo despectivo del tabloide News of the World]
- Many people criticized the News of the Screws for its sensationalist headlines.
Examples
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He's always quoting headlines from the News of the Screws at work.
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Journalists from the News of the Screws were caught in a phone-hacking controversy.
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The scandal was splashed all over the News of the Screws last Sunday.
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Did you read the latest article in the News of the Screws?
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During the meeting, he often referenced gossip columns from the News of the Screws.
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The controversial story was prominently featured in the News of the Screws this week.
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She used to be an editor for the News of the Screws before moving to a more reputable publication.
Synonyms
188
3.7
A small newspaper or magazine that tells gossip and exciting stories about people
1
8.1
Newspapers or magazines that print scandal stories and invade people's privacy to sell more copies
Surface Forms
Morphology
This is a culture-specific, derogatory nickname that substitutes 'Screws' for the newspaper title and relies on wordplay and background knowledge of the tabloid; a B1 learner who knows 'news' and the slang 'screw' would likely interpret it literally (e.g. news about prison guards) rather than as a nickname for News of the World. The meaning therefore cannot be predicted compositionally from the constituents and requires extra-linguistic knowledge, making it non-transparent.
Etymology
News of the Screws may come from a joking change of the real title 'News of the World' by swapping 'World' for screws to make a sharp image. One popular idea is that it pictured the paper pressing people hard to get private stories, so the nickname meant the paper was pushy and intrusive.