trash

[Jonathan Lighter]

Not in OED in the vital sense, "entertainment, esp. writing, that is
diverting or enjoyable despite being sensational, superficial, cliched, or
the like."

Anyone who doubts the separateness of this nuance might consider the
decontextualized sentence, "I love trash."  Or contrast the likely
interpretations of :

"He's made a fortune writing trash."

"Propaganda is principally trash."

Early or perhaps incipient ex.:

1947 (Nov. 3) in James Agee _ Film Writing and Selected Journalism_ (N.Y.:
Library of America, 2006) 436: They have seldom forgotten that the original
novel they were adapting is essentially intelligent trash.

The novel is William Lindsey Gresham's _Nightmare Alley_ (1946).

JL

--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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