penny-a-liner
- noun
- Offensive
:
escritor de pacotilla
- As a penny-a-liner, she was known for churning out articles with little depth for the local newspaper.
Examples
-
He decided to work as a penny-a-liner during the summer to fund his college tuition.
-
He's a penny-a-liner-- some third-rate artist, but how can she know?
-
Many students dream of becoming a penny-a-liner to earn a quick buck writing for magazines.
Synonyms
2
8.2
A writer, often a journalist, who people think is not very skilled
2
9.5
A book or film that someone makes quickly and badly to earn money
1
7.5
A writer who makes low quality books or articles only for money
A writer who writes many low-quality books mostly for money
A person who writes badly with poor spelling or messy handwriting
How Low-Quality
Surface Forms
Morphology
penny-a-liner = penny-a-line (opaque) = penny + line + er
The word is built on the historical phrase 'penny a line', but the modern pejorative sense is not directly predictable from the parts.
Etymology
Penny-a-liner comes from old newspapers that paid writers by the line: the part penny means 'a very small amount of money' and line means 'a line of writing'. So a penny-a-liner is a writer who makes quick, cheap work for little pay.