Digest

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Der or das Digest [ ˈdaɪ̯d͡ʒɛst ] is a journalistic publication that reproduces texts that were first published elsewhere in abbreviated or summarized form. In this special form of second publication, the compressed presentation should enable a quick and easy overview of the most important text contents.

Origin of the term and meaning

The term was borrowed from English into German and ultimately goes back to the late Latin digesta , “ordered”, “ordered writings”, which is also known as the title of the work for the so-called pandects , a late antique compilation of the works of Roman legal scholars. In the Romance languages, in which the word has always been found, as in English, various, sometimes deviating special meanings have emerged from it, in the sense of "practical manual " it can be found in the Catalan title of Manual Digest (1748), an overview the history and legal norms of the Principality of Andorra .

In English, the word can be found in the title of technical or sector-specific newsletters and dossiers (e.g. Accountants Digest , Agricultural Science Digest ). In the legal field, it particularly refers to collections of court decisions (e.g. Digest of International Law ), whereas in fine literature it refers to anthologies that reproduce extensive or demanding, i.e. “difficult” texts in abbreviated or linguistically simplified form. In this regard, the magazine Reader's Digest , which is now distributed in numerous countries and languages ​​(in Germany since 1948), is particularly well known. In German, “Digest” has been an Anglicism since the post-war period; it first appeared here in 1947 in the title of the monthly magazine Katholischer Digest . The magazine Sputnik , which appeared between 1967 and 1991 in several languages, called itself the “digest of the Soviet press” .

A special meaning that is unknown in English is sometimes to be found in German music journalism, here the word, similar to potpourri or medley, also refers to an only partial performance of a more extensive musical oeuvre (“operetta digest”).

See also

  • Reader , a similar type of publication, especially in university use

literature

  • Article digest . In: Broder Carstensen and Ulrich Busse: Anglicisms Dictionary: The Influence of English on German Vocabulary after 1945 . De Gruyter, Berlin 2001, Volume 1 ( A-E ), pp. 358-359.