Look up blurb in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

A blurb is a short summary or some words of praise accompanying a creative work, usually referring to the words on the back of the book but also commonly seen on DVD and video cases, web portals and news websites. Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Wiktionary (from wiki and dictionary) is a multilingual, Web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in over 150 languages. ... A chained book in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of paper, parchment, or other material, usually fastened together to hinge at one side, and within protective covers. ... DVD (also known as Digital Versatile Disc or, incorrectly, Digital Video Disc) is an optical disc storage media format that can be used for data storage, including movies with high video and sound quality. ... Video (Latin for I see, first person singular present, indicative of videre, to see) is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion. ... A Web portal is a single point of access to information which is Linked from various logically related internet based applications and of interest to various type of users Portals present information from diverse sources in a unified way. ... The first set of news sites emerged when brick-and-mortar news providers moved their content online. ...

History

The word originated in 1907. US humorist Gelett Burgess's short 1906 book "Are you a bromide?" was presented in a limited edition to an annual trade association dinner. The custom at such events was to have a dust jacket promoting the work and with, as Burgess' publisher B. W. Huebsch described it, 1907 (MCMVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Wednesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... A humorist is an author who specializes in short, humorous articles or essays. ... Frank Gelett Burgess (January 30, 1866 - September 18, 1951) was an artist, art critic, poet, author, and humorist. ... 1906 (MCMVI) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... A bromide is a phrase, or person who uses phrases, which have been used and repeated so many times as to become either insincere in their meaning, or seem like an attempt at trying to explain the obvious. ... The dust jacket (sometimes dust wrapper, abbreviated dj or dw) of a hardback book is the paper, usually illustrated and including front and back flaps, that protects the binding of the book from scratches. ...

"the picture of a damsel--languishing, heroic, or coquettish — anyhow, a damsel on the jacket of every novel"

In this case the jacket proclaimed "YES, this is a 'BLURB'!" and the picture was of a (fictitious) young woman "Miss Belinda Blurb" shown calling out, described as "in the act of blurbing".

The name and term stuck for any publisher's contents on a book's back cover, even after the picture was dropped and only the complementary text remained.

Today

A blurb on a book or a film can be any combination of quotes from the work, the author, the publisher, reviewers or fans, a summary of the plot, a biography of the author or simply claims about the importance of the work. Many humorous books and films parody blurbs that deliver exaggerated praise by unlikely people and insults disguised as praise.

• Monty Python and the Holy Grail - "Makes Ben Hur look like an Epic"
• 1066 and All That - "We look forward keenly to the appearance of their last work"

In the 1980s, Spy Magazine ran a regular feature called "Logrolling in Our Time" which exposed writers who wrote blurbs for one anothers' books.[1] Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a film released in 1975. ... Later paperback edition (circa late 1960s). ... Spy magazine was founded in 1986 by Kurt Andersen and E. Graydon Carter. ... Logrolling is a colorful phrase used to describe trading of votes by legislative members to obtain passage of actions of interest to each legislative member. ...

On the Internet a blurb is used to give a brief description or promotion of an article or other larger work.

See also

• Contextomy
• Blurb.com

// Contextomy Contextomy refers to the selective excerpting of words from their original linguistic context in a way that distorts the source’s intended meaning, a practice commonly (and erroneously) referred to as the fallacy of quoting out of context. ... Blurb. ...

References

• The story of Miss Belinda Blurb at wordorigins.org

• McGlone, Matthew S. (2005). Contextomy: The Art of Quoting Out of Context. Media Culture, & Society, Vol. 27, No. 4, 511-522.

• Original dust jacket at the Library of Congress